by Andy Schell
Amity, in between bites of lobster and sips of beer, stops and holds my hand and bathes me with her eyes, but doesn’t even try
to add language to the moment before she gently releases my fingers and returns to the food. Maybe there hasn’t been language invented yet for two people like us in a situation like this.
While the orchestra plays, a Mexican gentleman with a large, old-fashioned camera goes table to table. He stops and raises his camera to capture us. Amity leans over, I hold a bottle of beer in my right hand and put my left arm around her, and she puts both her hands under the table on my leg, where she slides one hand inside my boxer shorts and moves it upward until it almost touches my dick. We look into the camera. Flash.t Her hand is gone.
We look at each other and burst with laughter. “You almost touched my lobster,” I tell her.
After dinner we move onto the dance floor and shake it out with the band to some killer merengue. We’re a little drunk on margadtas, beer, and most definitely, each other. We don’t even notice that everyone else is dressed formally until the maitre d’ comes onto the dance floor to inform us there is no dancing in underwear. We laugh, dance back to our seats, feed each other dessert, and pay the check both of us contributing, me using my little stash of cash.
We hold hands on the return drive to Padre, and once back, Amity says, “Let’s take a romantic walk on the beach.” The moon , is full enough that we can see the sand below our toes and the waves rolling in beyond the shore. We stroll, holding our shoes in one hand, each other in the other, while the warm wind washes over the sea and onto our faces. I look down and in the moonlight see little creatures running at our feet. Crabs? Wait. What’s that one with the curled tail? A scorpion? A scorpion! “Amity, there’re scorpions on the beach!”
“Where?” she screams.
“There!” I say, pointing to the creature with the erectile little tail.
“Run!”
We break hands and run toward the hotel, dodging crabs and scorpions and anything else our imaginations might give form. We get to the door, and Amity says, “Hurry!” as I try to get the key into the lock. We fly into the room and fall onto the bed, laughing. She pulls herself up to me and says, “I love you, Harry Ford.” And before I can answer she slides down my body, pulling off my boxers as she descends.
This is a strange moment for a gay guy, believe me. It’s as if all my life I’ve eaten Almond Joys, and for the first time I’m about to sink into a Mounds. It’s just so much softer and smoother, and though it’s supposed to be sweet, I’m not sure I’ll taste the sugar in it and I’ll definitely be missing the nuts.
But as if she senses my apprehension, she doesn’t make me take a bite at all, but bites it herself, so to speak. It doesn’t matter that my dick isn’t hard in the beginning, she makes it hard. And forget that I called her a Mounds she’s a fucking Payday, with more nuts than any guy. And I’m losing my mind, because the one thing I’ve always heard that women have in common is that they can’t give head. I’ve heard wrong; Amity is far beyond even any gay man. She sucks me as if she’s dying of thirst, and I’m the only source for a thousand miles, as if she’s desperate for my release. I’m rolling all over the bed, sometimes pushing her off because it’s so intense, and she’s following me, hungrily reconnecting, begging me to give it up, moaning, whining, totally in need.
When I come, I scream like a sixteen year old getting his first hummer, and she screams too, her mouth full. Then she swallows. And then we both collapse as if we’ve been shot.
We lie there for several minutes, both of us catching our breath. I feel guilty all of a sudden. I should do something for her, right? If not, I’m just like JT, the car salesman. But what will I do? I’ve never flicked the switch on Cindy’s trap door. I wouldn’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’d be the amateur of all time. “So?” I say halfheartedly, my dick starting to soften. “What about you?”
/“IIU UUIII,
“Don’t worry,” she answers, exhaling. “I already did. We together.”
I’m so relieved I take her wet hand and hold it. I hear her rustle against the pillow as she turns to me. I turn mine and into her eyes.
“Just hold my hand,” she says delicately, “and I’ll be happy.” And she soon is sleeping without nightmares.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
s Amity pulls the BMW up to the house, we both see the official-looking piece of paper taped to the front door. Never mind that I’m not poor white trash. I have put ninety cents’ worth of gas in my VW because that was the sum of change in my ashtray, and I have lived on convenience store hot dogs after I blew my measly paycheck while at college. I know what that piece of paper is.
“Creditors,” Amity mutters with contempt.
“How do you know?” I ask sheepishly as we step out of the calAmity goes to the mailbox, grabs the mail, and sorts through it. “It’s happened to me, Harry. Only once, but it sucks. That’s why I date rich guys.”
“Until now.” Fuck. I can’t believe I said that. “I mean … I
guess we’re not really dating. Which is good..” because ” “Relax, Harry. We don’t need a title.”
“I know,” I chuckle defensively. But it’s true: Life is different after that blow job. Somehow, I’m more of a man. And somehow, Amity is too. And I’m just not sure what that makes the two of us together. Am I a straight guy just because I got a blow job from a girl? Is she a gay guy just because she sucks dick like a man?
hllUy oh.;::
I read the notice. The credit company says they’ll be someone to the house again “in the near future.” Fools. Don’t know I have no future. “What the fuck am I going to do?”
“Don’t worry, Harry. I’m all lined up to go out with this bi bucks guy named Kim.”
“A guy named Kim?”
“Why not? There was a boy named Sue. Listen, Harry. Kim filthy rich and his mid life crisis is burning a hole in his pocket. needs a girl like me who can cash those checks as fast as he c write them. I’ll make sure some of those checks have your on them.”
It’s amazing. She must know my family is worth more than hundred million dollars, and she’s not only never asked me for penny, but she’s willing to help me out. But I don’t care how money he has Amity shouldn’t have to date him if she doesn want to. Besides, I can’t help but feel jealous. “You’re not some middle-aged got rocks in order to pay off my bills, a guy named Kim,” I say, disgusted. I realize what has to be “We just need to go to Kansas and meet my mother,” I sigh.
I
our bags from the trunk, carry them in. ‘ “What are you talking about, Harry?” Amity asks. I’ll explain later. Let’s get stoned.”
“Uh-oh,” she warns, looking at the pile of mail in her
“Just like clockwork. They always know.” ‘ I set our bags down in the house. “What?”
“You got two new credit cards while we were gone.” “Fuck!” I laugh.
“It’s like they can smell you when you’re desperate, so just keep sending you more temptation. Come on,” she pulling on my arm. “We gotta freeze these bad boys.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She reaches into the cupboard in the kitchen and pulls out midsize Tupperware bowls, then instructs me to remove the
cards from the envelopes. She takes a piece of ice from the tray in the freezer, wets it, and sticks it to another piece of ice. “Get a couple pieces of ice and do what I’m doing,” she tells me. “What are we doing, Amity?”
“We’re freezing your assets, babe. You gotta make these bad boys unavailable for impulse purchases.” She shows me how to wet the little tower of cubes and stick the card onto it, then set each of them into a bowl carefully, credit card balanced on top, and fill the bowl until water is five inches over and under the card. “You gotta have the credit card frozen right in the middle of the block of ice so you have to wait hours before you use that card and by the time it thaws you’ve come to yo
ur senses, and you just put it back in the freezer.”
“You’re crazy,” I laugh, grabbing her around the waist and kissing her. “You definitely need to meet my mother.”
The next day, as I walk by myself through the airport terminal, pulling my luggage on my little luggage cart, I have a confidence I didn’t have before Padre Island. I feel more authentic, as if I’m finally a citizen of the world. It’s hard to explain, but I mostly go through life thinking that everyone else is stamped with APPROVED while I’m left blank. But after my tryst with Amity, I’m stamped. One of them.
After we’re airborne, a girl I’m working with says, “So you’re Amity’s latest?”
“Latest? I guess.” I’m flattered to be chosen by one of the most beautiful, mysterious women at the airline. I smile. “Yes.”
“What’s it like living with Amity Stone?” she says with half a smirk on her face.
“Everyone always asks me that at work,” I tell her. “It’s great. We’re always laughing. I love it.”
“Do you guys sleep together?”
Man, this girl isn’t shy. But then again, most flight attendants aren’t. They’ll tell you anything and expect the same. My second
month on the job I flew with a girl who shared all the gory details i of her impending divorce and said, “I haven’t had sex with husband in three years, but I’m finally having orgasms again becau I’m sleeping with my therapist, and would you mind taking a of peanuts and a Miller Lite out to the guy with the cowboy hat row eight?” “Amity says never kiss and tell,” I say, finally answering her question.
“It’s a good philosophy,” the girl agrees, “especially for
Amity.” ‘
“Hey, I know all about the professor at CCT,” I say
“Big deal.”
“I don’t know anything about a professor,” the girl
“I was talking about her first husband, the millionaire.”
“I know about him too,” I scoff. A lie. She told me she’s been married, and naturally I believed her. Does this girl have facts right? Surely this can’t be true. Why wouldn’t Amity just ,. me if she had been married?
Not an hour after I return home from my trip, as I’m totally stoned on pot, the yard boys appear. Amity, who is flying, has told me about them, and though I’ve yet to see they are legend in our household. Now I know why: they’re They bail out of a very expensive, candy apple red Chevy three of them, and they’re so beefy and muscled and naked that I expect them to turn the volume up on the “Union of the Snake” by Duran Duran is playing in the and use the hand clippers to snip off their little short shorts bump and grind in G-strings on the front lawn.
Amity says that the house we’re living in is one of the of properties owned by one of those Dallas families with a I definitely recognize, because my parents are friends of And the particular son that manages and looks over this is gay. So the yard boys he hires are like the A-list at
I go from room to room, looking through windows to check them out. I can’t stand it. I have to pull my dick out. I drop my pants around my ankles and use one hand to separate the miniblinds, the other to warm my dick.
The beefiest yard boy, the one with a buzz cut and a tattoo on his exploding biceps, is just beyond the glass. His triceps flex as he trims the grass next to the house with the weed eater. I’m apud whacker he’s a weed whacker. It’s a beautiful relationship.
I look down, past the bulge in his shorts; his legs are shaved. Hotski wow-wow. This big moose, with biceps and a tattoo, shaves his legs. It’s a mixture of feminine and masculine that sends me through the roof. Shit, he’s moving on, just as I swear I’m going to come!
My pants at my ankles, I hobble like a doped-up, perverted Easter bunny into Amity’s room to follow. I make it to the window, push the lace coverings away, separate the miniblinds. I’m stroking away when her phone rings, and the machine picks up. “Hi, honey,” the woman’s voice says, “it’s your mom and dad. We really miss you, and we’re worded because we haven’t heard from you in a while. You all right? Please call us, Amy, and let us know you’re all right. You know we’ll be there in a heartbeat if you need us.”
I feel so weird, jerking off while Amity’s mother is talking. I concentrate on the yard stud when her father comes on. “That’s right, darling’. Your momma and I miss you something’ awful. You call, OK? “Bye now.”
” “Bye!” her mother’s voice adds before they hang up.
God, they sound nice.
The yard stud, the yard stud. Back to business.
Ding-dong.
Shit! Someone’s at the door! Someone’s at the fucking door! Oh, God. What if it’s one of the yard boys? I pull my pants up as the doorbell continues to ring insistently. If it is a yard boy, I can tell by the way he rings that he’s a top.
I stuff my stiff dick into my pants and think of puppies and squirrels and innocent little things to make it go down. It’s not working, and as I move toward the front door I go for the old standby, Heidi Schaeffer. Heidi was a fat little German girl grammar school whose bottom never smelled right, particularly after recess. I’ve used the visual and olfactory memory of Heidi to squelch hard-ons for years. I’m only semi by the time I open the door. The scent of freshly cut grass pours in, washing Heidi’s bottom from my nostrils.
“Mr. Ford?” the ancient couple asks in unison. It’s hot they’re sweating, bundled in their Sunday clothes.
xes. I feel gravity pulling my softening dick down. “We’re from the Healthy Retriever Credit Agency,” the old woman says, watching my dick move in my pants. “May we have a couple minutes of your time?”
They’re old. They look as if they’re going to die. What am going to do, slam the door in their faces? “Sure, come on in.”
They each lift their feet over the threshold as if they’re stepping over a great chasm. I direct the woman to the wingback chair. get a folding chair from the closet for the gentleman, whom I into the seat. I stand. “How can I help you?” ,
Father Time clears his throat, tries to speak. Nothing comes
He clears his throat again. “We’re here on behalf of Inter-Bank, as well as Ala-Corp,” he says, reading his papers. seems you owe a total of…” He can’t find the figure on the He struggles for it, adjusts his glasses. Gives up. “I’m as blind
Jose Feliciano, but without the musical background,” he
“Can I help you?” I offer.
Whistler’s mother thinks I’m talking to her. “Do you have water?” She looks ashen, dizzy, not long for this world.
“Yes, of course,” I say, hustling to the kitchen. I grab ice put into glasses and see the frozen credit cards in containers. God, these people are bill collectors? They make
Carbonada look like a candy striper. They’re Mesozoic at best. This is terrible. They shouldn’t be out in the Texas heat, hunting down delinquent bill payers who buy BMWs. I feel so guilty. “Here,” I say gently, offering them cold water. “I think I owe close to fifteen thousand dollars. Unless you count the balance on the car I recently bought, which is financed through my credit union. Then it’s about forty thousand total.”
“OK,” the man answers.
“Yes, probably,” the woman adds.
“Are you two married?”
“Sixty-one years,” the woman responds, lacking the enthusiasm I’d expect from such a statement.
These poor people. They’ve got to be over eighty years old, and they’re working this horrendous job where desperate, bankrupt people must scream at them, spit on them, and treat them like shit. I’ll bet it’s this lousy savings-and-loan crisis. I’ll bet they lost all their retirement savings, and this is how they survive. Don’t they know McDonald’s hires senior citizens? They could work in an air-conditioned building, and no one would scream or spit on them for offering up Big Macs and soft-serve cones. I can’t stand it. I run into the kitchen, open the freezer, grab the Tupperware, turn it over and pop out the large bowls of ice. I carry them
to the creditors. “Look! I’m serious about not going into any more debt. I’ve frozen my cards. And I’ll get you the money, I promise!”
“You will?” the man asks, surprised.
“I will,” I decree, sincerely, balancing the ice hunks in my freezing hands. “Do they give you a bonus for making a quick collection?” I picture them being able to retire on the bonus from my speedy payoff, living a life of relaxation, wintering in Scottsdale, summering in Vancouver.
“They?” the man asks, ice water dribbling a little down his craggy chin.
“Whoever owns the company,” I say.
“We own the company,” the old woman says. “We got tired of cruise ships and grandchildren and vacations and watching our stocks split and our dividends be reinvested. So we started a business.” She downs her ice water.
I want to stick a vacuum hose down her throat and suck it back up. Then I want to throw it in her baggy face. “How nice for you,” I chirp, pert and perky as I possibly can be, my hands too cold to ever stroke my dick again, these two dinosaurs who deserved to die in the ice age with all the rest of them smiling in my miserable face.
To think, these old fossils cost me a yard-boy orgasm!
Three days later, Amity comes back from her work trip.
“I thought you were supposed to get home yesterday?” I ask, pouring us glasses of sun tea I brewed on the back porch.
“We got rerouted. Extra night in Memphis. I got fucked by the ghost of Elvis!”
“How was it?”
“He drugged me. I can’t remember,” she says, taking her glass of tea.
She walks to the bathroom. I follow her and sit on the tub while she sits on the toilet. As her stream of pee shoots into the bowl, i tell her about the blood-sucking dinosaurs that came calling money.