I made my escape to the studio, where our early evening announcer signed off and I pulled a few CDs, annoyed that I might miss the cake. I went online for the latest weather report and local news and closed the studio door but left the light on. This was one of the occasions when Neil or Bill would give guests the grand tour so they could have the pleasure of staring through the window at me.
I lined up a short piece to begin with and glanced at the phone. It was too early for him to call, but… I wasn’t sure he’d approve. And that raised some uncomfortable questions. Did I need his approval? Was I using Willis the way I’d used Jason? (Except that had been entirely spontaneous…hadn’t it?) And we’d parted on good terms with no expectations and… Willis was just so unlike the men I usually dated, but according to Kimberly I made bad choices in that area. I pulled out my cell phone and texted her to save me a piece of cake, and then watched the countdown on the music currently playing.
Cake was nice and simple and not sullied by issues of morality. Unless you were concerned about your weight or a wannabe dancer obsessed with keeping yourself to bone and muscle (and probably planning to barf it up anyway), cake was a pleasure, pure and simple.
The music ended and I came on air and made a short announcement. My philosophy was that we did not have personality announcers, but a smooth flow of music and if our listeners noticed the voice had changed, that was fine. But it was the music that kept them listening.
When I flipped the mic off someone knocked at the door and I got up to answer it. To my surprise it was Patrick with a plate of cake.
“Kimberly told me to bring this to you.”
“Great. Want to come in?”
“Sure.” He came in and looked around. “So how does all this work?”
I gave him my usual semitechnical explanation and offered him a seat. “Stay while I talk on air, if you like. Try not to sneeze.”
“I won’t.”
“You’d be surprised how many visitors have a coughing fit.” I took a quick bite of cake and put my headphones on.
This time I talked a little longer, giving a weather update and mentioning the music that would be coming up later, aware that I issued an invitation to Mr. D. This is when I can talk.
Then I hit the play button for the CD, faded the mic down and switched it off and removed my headphones.
“Do you get nervous?” Patrick asked.
“No. Some announcers imagine they’re talking to one person, or their pet. I don’t. If you think about how many people might be listening it’s unreal, intimidating. So I just talk.”
“And you like being here late at night?”
Well, yes. “I’m not always here late. I can put a show together by downloading music and recording the announcements, and that’s what I usually do if I want an early night. An intern comes in to make sure everything is okay and can step in to broadcast from the other studio if something goes wrong. But generally I work live.” I forked more cake into my mouth. “Thanks for bringing me this.”
“No problem.” He cleared his throat in the way men do when they are about to get personal. “Kimberly seems nice.”
“She is.”
“You’ve been friends for quite a while, she said.”
He was asking for a character reference, in other words. I thought I’d move things along a bit for him. “She’d probably appreciate a ride home, if you’re driving, that is.”
“Good to know.” He nodded in an emphatic sort of way. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Unless you’d like more cake?”
I told him I was fine and he left me to the quiet of the studio. Now and again a group of visitors came by, and I put my headphones on and looked properly busy at the console even if I wasn’t at that moment.
I was watching the clock. I was waiting for the moment when everyone left and my time with Mr. D. began.
“I’m worried I’m turning into some sort of fuck-bunny monster,” I said to Mr. D. before he’d barely had a chance to say hello. “It’s as though every guy I see, I’m eying up as a possible sexual partner.”
“Everyone?” I could tell he was trying not to laugh.
“Well, not everyone. Not Gerard Morgan. He’s one of our major supporters and I think he’s about eighty. I’d probably get his wife, Marilyn, as part of the deal, too—she keeps him on a short leash. On the other hand she’s a nubile seventy-five-year-old. They’re both pretty frisky, now that I think about it. I’m talking myself into it. See what you’ve done?”
“I’m not sure people aren’t eyeing each other up as sexual partners most of the time. Perhaps you’re being more honest than most of us.”
“I accepted a date tonight with someone I think is despicable.”
“Why?”
“My friend Kimberly—I’ve talked about her—persuaded me it would be a good idea, and she’s cultivating him for a gift to the station. She thinks I don’t date the right men.”
“I think she’s right.”
I twisted the phone cord. “And I accepted so that I could fuck him and then tell you about it. No, I know what you’re going to say. It’s my decision and all that. I don’t have to fuck him and we can talk about something else. I know. So why am I doing this?”
A silence. “There must be something you like about him.”
“He’s physically attractive. Not my type, but he’s handsome. And there’s something about him—he’s crude and materialistic but he doesn’t pretend to be anything else and I admire him for it. No, the real reason I find him attractive, Mr. D., is that I want to have sex with him and then tell you about it.”
“And this makes you feel—what? Guilty, sad?”
“Are you a shrink in real life?” I grinned. “No, it makes me feel excited. It makes me feel powerful and sexy, and I like that. But at the same time, it worries me.”
“I don’t ever want you to feel obligated to me. I love to talk with you. We can talk about whatever you like. You don’t have to describe your conquests to me unless you want to.”
“But I do want to.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. How long do we have?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“I’d like to have you talk on air seconds before you come. I’d like to hear that roughness in your voice and know you’re speaking to me, something you and I share. Will you do that for me, Jo?”
I hesitated. My next recording was cued, and the notes I’d use to make my next announcement lay ready on the console. I could do it, but what would his next demand be? “If I do that, will you ask me to come on air next?”
“No. That moment is for me. I don’t want to share that with anyone.”
I squeezed my legs together. I was alone in the station—I’d made sure of that—but I wondered if he’d delayed calling so he could specifically ask me to do this. In which case, I’d put him on the spot, too.
“Unzip yourself,” I said. I put the phone on speaker and heard a rustle, the slide of his zipper. “Are you hard?”
He gave a soft, sexy laugh. “What do you think?”
“Describe your cock for me.”
It was something of a test. I didn’t want bullshit about his hard eight inches because in my experience eight inches, or more, was something that existed only in men’s imaginations. Besides, who wanted a dick the size of a baseball bat pummeling their insides?
“It’s hard—I mean, hard in the sense of difficult—to describe something I’ve seen so many times. It has a slight curve to the right—I suppose because I’m right-handed. My pubic hair is dark brown with a few gray hairs, quite tightly curled. My cock is brown, darker than my skin, but the head is dark red. It’s very smooth. I’m running my fingertips up and down the ridge on the underside. Teasing myself.”
“Go on.” I traced my fingers lightly over my breasts. My nipples tightened.
“Now I’m cupping my balls with my other hand. They’re warm and heavy. Tightening against my palm.”
I listened to his labo
red breathing, the sound of his excitement.
“Jo? I’m touching the head of my cock with my thumb and forefinger, squeezing it. There’s some seepage, now.”
I traced the outline of my nipples and spread my legs. I’d worn a skirt for the party and beneath it my cunt felt full and heavy. “Tell me more. Tell me what your cock looks like now.”
“Darker. Wet. I’m using lube.” A gasp. “The head is swelling. Getting very sensitive. I’m using my whole hand. Sliding up and down.”
I slid a hand under my skirt and into my panties. Above my head the second hand of the clock moved. “Wait!”
He groaned.
I put his call on hold and moved to the console, placing the headphones on my head. The last chords of the music died away and I slid the faders into position, slowly and smoothly.
My voice sounded calm and soothing through the headphones, announcing what we had heard, and what was coming up next. A few words about the weather, and a short statement about the sponsor of the next hour of music, the local theater company, and their next production. “I’m Jo Hutchinson and it’s my pleasure to be with you for the next few hours.”
My pleasure indeed. Mic off, music up, phone call off hold. I gripped the edge of the console, pressed my pubic bone against it, hard, and my orgasm roared through me.
I dropped into the chair, out of breath.
“Jo? You okay?”
“Sure. I feel like I’ve run a mile.”
“Me, too. The way you said pleasure—that did it for me. You were speaking to me then. I felt it.” He laughed. “God, you make me feel like a randy teenager. I’d already jerked off at work thinking about you today.”
“You did? Where?”
“At my desk. I told my assistant I wasn’t to be disturbed and…well, you can imagine the rest.”
I could, but I also wished he’d waited for me, waited until I was off the air and I had heard him come.
“Are you disappointed?”
“At what?”
“That I do this without you?”
I shrugged before realizing he couldn’t see my gesture. “I don’t see that it’s anything to do with what you and I have. I guess I’m flattered that you fantasize about me.”
“We have such a small part of each other,” he said. “I don’t want to jeopardize what we have, until you decide you want more from me.”
“You know my answer to that.”
He sighed. I heard clothing rustle, and the sound of his zipper going up. “So how was the party tonight?”
“You knew about it?”
“I received an invitation, yes.”
I sat up a little straighter. “Were you there? Was that why you called so late?”
“You know I keep a low profile.”
“I can always look at the guest list,” I said, although I knew I wouldn’t. I wanted to keep the mystery. “I like the idea of you watching me across the room. How did you feel when you saw me flirt with other guys?”
He laughed. “If I had been there, I would have loved to have watched you. And seeing you flirt with other men—I would have felt hopeful. Excited. Because I would know I would receive the greatest and last pleasure, to be the one you would tell everything to.”
“So if I don’t seduce this guy tomorrow, will you be disappointed?”
“No. You can never disappoint me.”
6
I DREAMED SOMETHING RANG AND RANG, PEALING in my ear. I grabbed out and reached the phone.
A giggling squeal assaulted my ears. I blinked at the numbers of my digital clock. Three in the morning. I’d been asleep less than an hour.
“What?”
This time I recognized the voice.
“Kimberly? You okay?”
Another fit of giggling.
I finally figured out what the two syllables were she kept repeating. “You woke me up to tell me he has a foreskin?”
“Shit, sorry. I thought you’d be awake.” More giggling. “It’s weird.”
“He’s Irish. It’s probably normal there.”
“I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“Where are you?”
“My place. In the bathroom. He’s asleep.”
“Oh, good. He might find it depressing that you’re on the phone to a girlfriend giggling about his dick.”
“I wouldn’t say a word in front of him. It’s bad manners.”
“So is waking me up.”
“I’m sorry. I had to tell someone about it.”
I yawned. “I’m pretty sure there are AM call-in shows for this sort of situation. You sure you’re okay? Not overwhelmed by foreskinned leprechaun sex?”
“He’s cute. Nice. Sexy. We had a good time.”
“Great. Why don’t you go to sleep, too? Good night.”
“Are you grouchy for any other reason than being woken up?”
“No, I’m fine. ’Bye.” I disconnected the call and rolled over, dislodging Brady, who had swollen to twice his normal size and heated up to an alarming temperature, as cats will. I allowed myself a moment of self-pity. Kimberly had a guy in her bed and I had an overheated lump of fur in mine and a vibrator somewhere on the floor. I scrabbled around for it in a halfhearted sort of way, put off by the thought of the dust bunnies it might have accumulated. Sleep seemed a more wholesome alternative.
“I thought we’d have a picnic.” Willis grinned with approval at me—I thought it was approval, but it might have been self-satisfaction. On the other hand my outfit of cowboy boots and a black-and-white polka-dot, knee-length skirt looked pretty good to me. “That okay with you?”
“That sounds great.” It was one of those unseasonably warm days in the Rockies where half the town appears in shorts, grabbing a few rays before the temperature plummets with the setting sun.
He wore jeans and a battered leather jacket and looked slightly more human than in his expensive suits and ties, or at least slightly more like a guy I’d date. He ushered me out to his car, a sort of jeeplike thing, and I bit back the first comment that rose to my lips about its mileage. This was not the sort of vehicle acquired for its light carbon footprint.
“Like it?” he said, mistaking my interest.
“Sorry, I don’t know much about cars.”
To my relief, he didn’t take this as an invitation to educate me, but opened the car door and once we were seated, made a fuss of selecting music, adjusting the temperature and so on. Then he drove through the town and west into the foothills.
He didn’t say much and I wondered if he was shy, or maybe thinking he’d made a mistake.
“Are you seeing someone?” he asked.
“No. Are you?”
“No. You acted weird about coming out with me, so I thought…”
“I was in a fairly serious relationship for quite a long time. I haven’t got the hang of dating. How about you?” I’d given up telling him he wasn’t my type. He couldn’t or wouldn’t believe it.
“Divorced. I’m not ready for a serious relationship just yet. I like sexy, adventurous women like you.”
“What do you mean by adventurous? I used to date a rock-climbing fanatic. I went climbing with him a couple of times but I was scared to death.”
He shot me a glance. “You look athletic. Sure of yourself.”
“I ride a bike, but doesn’t everyone?” I looked at the road we were on, winding through pine trees. “This might be a good road to ride. Do you like sports?”
I’d asked for it. A lecture followed on the local football team. He stopped. “I guess you’re not into football?”
“No. I meant, do you climb or run? You look like you work out.”
“I lift weights, go to the gym a few times a week. Ski in the winter. Play a little golf.”
Oh, God, please don’t talk about golf or start comparing Breckenridge to Aspen.
He didn’t, having turned off the road and onto an unpaved track, probably an old logging road. The interior of the car was warm with the
bright sunlight that flickered through the trees, and I hated to admit it, but I enjoyed the leather seats and the comfortable ride, the luxury of riding in an expensive car.
“I hope this wasn’t too early in the day for you,” he said. “I brought brunch.”
“That’s very thoughtful.”
He pulled the jeep to a halt in a sunlit meadow. We weren’t far from town but when I opened the door and stepped outside I was struck by the peace, the quiet. “Is this it? The place you’re going to develop?”
He nodded. “It’s still in the early stages. It may not happen.”
“And if it doesn’t? Won’t you lose money?”
“I’ll have the land. It might happen next year or in ten years. You never know.” He reached into the back of the jeep for a picnic basket and cooler and led me over to an outcropping that held the heat of the sun. He was an attentive and solicitous host—he even had a plaid blanket that he spread on the rocks—and the picnic basket turned out to be one of those fancy ones with china plates and cutlery. He’d brought bagels and lox and cream cheese and champagne in the cooler.
So who was seducing whom?
“This is nice,” I said, hoping the surprise didn’t show in my voice. “Great bagels.”
He popped the cork on the champagne, not making a big deal of it but easing it off softly. A little vapor rose from the neck of the bottle before he poured it into two glasses, pale and sparkling. Good signs—I wondered how he’d be as a lover.
“You’re the first girl—I mean woman—I’ve brought here,” he said.
“Yeah? You seem to have all the right moves.” I clinked my glass against his.
He smiled and unscrewed the cap of a bottle of sparkling water. “I have to drive, but you go ahead.”
I raised my face to the sun. Perhaps it was the champagne, perhaps it was the company of a handsome man who was not full of self-important chatter, as I’d feared, but I felt extraordinarily peaceful and at ease.
I finished my bagel and wondered if it would be crass to ask if I could have one for later—I decided it would be—but accepted an orange, one of those big, fat expensive ones that I hardly every bought. The rind peeled off with an easy grace and a wonderful whiff of scent.
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