I’m laughing and I really mean it. I’ve heard lots of lines over the years, men have told me lots of stories. But it doesn’t prevent me from responding now and then. Eddie seems like he’d be a lot of fun. The thing I have to keep in mind about decoy work, this guy isn’t the client. He’s supposed to think all of this is for real. After a while we’re both silent, making good time down the river to Lake Ontario. The land rises in rocky cliffs on either side. This is the nicest part of it here along this stretch, unspoiled by tourist helicopters or the Maid of the Mist, just blue water under the sun and the trees that cling to the cliffs. Time seems to have stopped, I have no idea how long we’ve been going. Just ahead the river widens into the lake, it stretches far to the horizon. Eddie’s doing something with the boat, it stops. He’s dropping the anchor.
We head for the deck, and he sits back in the sunshine with obvious pleasure.
“What a day,” he exults.
“I’m with you,” and I sit down near him, closing my eyes. I slip out of my blouse, and we’re quiet again for a few minutes. He moves closer to me, till his thigh is touching mine, casual like.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“Starving,” I tell him.
“Good. You do like smoked oysters?”
“Love them.”
“OK,” and he springs up again. “Be right back.”
There are strategies for moving things along quicker. Like sometimes when the date hesitates, or maybe you’re just getting tired of the small talk. In public places, natch, there are alternatives, maybe a little whisper in the ear, like “let’s go back to your room and fuck, honey,” or “God, I would love to wrap my lips around your cock, right now!” But nothing beats a visual for dramatic effect. A look around and there seems to be no other boats in the vicinity, no houses directly in view. I slip out of the rest of my clothes, and when Eddie comes up the stairs to the deck again I’m lying on my stomach wearing nothing but my sunglasses. I see him start, almost dropping the champagne bucket.
“I hope you don’t mind.” My voice is soft. “I hate tan lines.”
He laughs, then sets down the champagne bucket and a plate of goodies to open the bottle and pour us a glass. I take a sip, and a quick bite of the oysters. Eddie brings his glass to sit next to me again, and I finish my bubbly while he strokes my shoulder, down my back to my ass. Soft skin has always been one of my trademarks, and it’s been worth the time and money spent on it. He pets me just like you’d pet a cat, but I like this. I half close my eyes, rest my chin on my hands, and I could fall asleep in the sun. But Eddie’s not getting sleepy. He pours another round of champagne, and his petting turns to kisses. It goes on from there, down the steps and back inside on the plush carpeting of the cabin.
Most of the time, with these decoy jobs, I don’t end up in bed. Not unless I really like them. I mean, I’m not supposed to. Like, my God, that would be prostitution!! We just need a compromising enough position, whatever the wife needs to be sure the guy is really the dog she thinks he is. But here, I mean, I can’t exactly walk off the boat. And I’m liking this Eddie, he’s uncomplicated. Or at least he is with me.
Anyway, the whole day is spent naked, eating and boozing and fucking Eddie all over the boat. Fucking and sucking and licking every orifice of his, and of mine. Not such a bad job to have, on a Saturday afternoon in July. He’s like a child, he just wants to have a playmate. And he tells me all kinds of things about his life, about growing up in a small town up north, coming south to Hamilton.
“Supposed to be on my way to Toronto,” he says with a laugh, “but somehow I never left.”
I smile and laugh back, and listen wondering for about the millionth time what exactly it is about naked women that makes men want to spill their guts.
It’s early evening by the time we get back to the marina in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
“Hey, you promised me Burlington,” I protest as we jump off the boat. “And wasn’t this supposed to be about working at your restaurant?”
Eddie secures the boat, giggling like a school boy.
“You want Burlington that much, we can go next week. How about Monday? And don’t worry about the restaurant, there’ll be enough work there to keep you around for as long as you want.”
He’s charming, too charming. Too guileless.
“Sure Eddie. That would be great.”
He kisses me good-bye and we’re both still wrapped in that warm glow of physical closeness, giddy and faces creased into an unbreakable smile.
“Call me,” he says, and I promise to.
I walk back to my car slowly, get in and pull out of town. Fuck David anyway, and fuck the wife. They’ll get their report, sooner or later. But there’s no need to hang the man yet. The strangest thing, I’ve found, is the way some of these guys – like Eddie – actually give a shit about whether I’m having a good time or not. Whether I come, even. And I have to wonder how bad it could be to have a husband like that.
Admittedly, though, this is not my area of expertise.
If It Makes You Happy by Cole Riley
“You’re not so damn tough and probably not so bright either, big man.”
The woman looked directly at him when she said it. Her voice. It was the voice of a colour: deep, dark red. Fiery, suggestive, and full of passionate promises. Her voice, rich-toned and throaty, was the first thing he noticed about her and the thing he would always remember about her. Her voice of sexy, crimson hymns.
He knew the moment his eyes saw the woman that trouble would soon be on his doorstep. She was handcuffed, metal confining her wrists behind her back, silhouetted against a high white wall. The guys from Hopewell Corrections Centre were trying to figure out how she had managed to escape from her cell for three days before a traffic cop spotted her coming out of a fast-food joint. She never told how she did it. Now she was being admitted to Newton psychiatric facility for observation. Her behaviour was deemed erratic at the time of her capture. He couldn’t see it. She seemed calm and serene as she stood in custody. But it was what happened in the elevator going up to Processing that twisted his mind out of joint and started his obsession with her. With guards flanking her, she stood in front of him, her hands behind her, touching and caressing his genitals. Stroking him until his legs were almost buckling by the time the ancient elevator reached the seventh floor. She was something else, not your usual brand of woman.
“Don’t forget me,” she whispered to him as they led her away down the dimly lit corridor to the front desk.
And he didn’t forget her. He was totally fixated on her. Being a guard at the facility meant he often saw her on the grounds, in the hall, or in the cafeteria. There were always people around her, usually men, laughing and talking loudly, so he had no access to this woman who was slowly driving him mad. He watched her eat, how her mouth with its large soft lips worked, how her long tongue flicked at its corners. He watched her walk, the smooth rolling of her wide hips, the inviting space between her thighs as she moved seductively among the other inmates. Once, going up the stairs before him, she stopped, backed into him, and did a quick bending twist of her ass into his crotch. Oh, he was hooked. Totally and completely. Yet another black man bamboozled by lust and a hard dick.
“Don’t forget me, sweetheart,” she whispered to him again. An orderly, carrying a tray of meds, interrupted their chance meeting, standing watch until the couple exited the stairwell and went their separate ways. No fraternizing between staff and patients.
He never asked anyone her name. He wanted to hear it first spoken from her very own lips. In that dark red voice. The day before he tossed his life away because of lust, a vivid imagination, and a stiff libido was the first time they really talked. They squeezed into a supply room among shelves laden with towels, gowns, rubber gloves, and canisters of liquid soap. The woman was pressed close to him, too close for comfort, and notions of taking her right there flooded his mind. With her young, gorgeous, Lena Horne-looking self. The post-Cotton Club Lena, in full bloom. But everything had to be right. Exactly like he pictured it over and over every night as he lay in bed and touched himself. Her and her dark red voice.