While I’d been successful at not engaging with Chris when I hadn’t managed to avoid him, I hadn’t been effective in keeping my mind free of thoughts of him. And at night, I dreamed about him in ways that would make Dr. Fellatio blush. The boy of my past coupled with the man of today created an erotic fantasy that left me frustrated and unsatisfied. I’d used Candi as my cold water to douse the heat I woke to. Anytime he made his way into my thoughts, I reminded myself he was taken—he’d chosen her. My feelings volleyed between green envy and blind rage.
After parking behind Candi’s Bug, I forced myself into a state of clarity. I was here to do a job—one I was fantastic at. I checked my face in the mirror before stepping out and then ran my hands down my designer jeans to remove the sweat from my palms. With my knuckles poised to knock on the door, I realized I’d left my bag in the car and ran back to get it. I needed to get my shit together and stop acting like an amateur.
The knock sounded hollow, and I wondered if it would even be heard. I should have known Candi anticipated my arrival and had likely been watching me through the window. The same vanilla candles burned on the coffee table when she let me in, and nothing had changed since the last time I was here. Other than the one picture in the living room, there wasn’t anything that indicated Chris lived here.
Candi clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet. “I’ve been counting the minutes until you got here.” Her excitement should have set me at ease, but instead, it heightened my dread.
“Oh, yeah? Are you ready to get started?”
“Girl, you have no idea. I need to find a way to excite him.”
I should have felt sorry for her. That sentence was girl code for sympathy. I knew every tic Chris had and every nuance that turned him on…and off. If I could put my petty feelings aside, I could really help Candi, and hopefully, feel better about all of this in the process, knowing I had another satisfied customer.
“Would you like to take notes?” I never offered my clients this option, but with Candi, I hoped she’d take me up on it so she had something to reference when she went hopping down the bunny trail five minutes after I left.
“No.” She waved her hand dramatically. “I’ve got the memory of a sloth.”
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought they frequently forgot to breathe, fell out of trees, and had brains as slick as peas. “You mean an elephant?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Her voice was as animated as her expression. The image of flames from the candles danced on her irises, adding to her exuberance. “I get those comparisons mixed up.”
I could see how the speed of a sloth and the memory of an elephant could be easy to confuse. Dwelling on Candi’s mental ineptitude would only slow down this process, and I needed to get the ball rolling. I was confident once we began everything else would fall into place.
With a deep breath in and then out, I started the same way I always did. “The first session has three parts. All three of these pieces work together and are usually the most difficult to master, but once they’re working cohesively, we will start to build with techniques.”
“Oh, I don’t think Christopher’s going to like glue anywhere near his—” She cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned toward me to whisper, “Penis.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from asking her who she thought would overhear her say “penis,” and once I was sure I had my laughter under control, I asked, “Who said anything about glue?”
“You said adhesive.”
No.
“Cohesive, not adhesive. There will be no Elmer’s anywhere near a naked body. Ever.”
Candi wiped the back of her hand across her brow in an exaggerated show. “Phew. That could’ve gotten sticky.” She snorted. “Did you see what I did there?”
I waited with a polite smile stretched across my lips for her to stop canoodling at her own stupidity.
“I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”
I couldn’t tell.
“I’m good. Go ahead.” She straightened her back and laced her fingers together in front of her.
“Maybe we should sit?”
“Barbie would be mortified that I’d lost my manners. Please, make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink? We could go to the kitchen if you want?”
I wasn’t sure which disturbed me more, Candi calling her mom Barbie or the thought of sitting at her tiny bistro table staring at that jacket the entire time I was here. “The couch is fine.”
Once I was situated with my back to the framed picture of my ex, I crossed my ankles and angled my knees the way any lady would, and then set my bag on the floor next to my feet. Candi eyed the brown-leather satchel I’d brought in but didn’t ask any questions.
“As I was saying…tonight, I’m going set you up with the platform for mind-blowing fellatio. You have to have confidence, communication, and cognizance. The three Cs.”
“Confidence, communication, and cognizance. Got it.”
“No man wants a woman who needs to be led around the sexual arena. You have to learn to be assertive—take what you want with finesse. Women always think it’s sexy when a man is the aggressor, but the truth is, a confident woman is a well-sated woman.” I might just make it through this if I stuck to the script.
“I can be confident.” Her response was just that.
“Next is communication. Men need to hear a woman tell him what she loves about his body and what she wants to do with it.”
“Like they do in pornos?” Candi’s brow scrunched, and her nose and lips did some odd contortion of their own.
I wanted to tell her she was spot on. That those films were what men fantasized about. The racier, the better. Tell her to whisper nasty thoughts in his ear, text him while he’s at work, call his cell—the more frequently she reminded him of what he did to her and how he turned her on, the more anticipation she’d build. But that was taking confidence to dominance and possibly foul interference. “No. Men jack off to porn. They don’t make love to it.” I didn’t know how I’d managed to be honest. “It has to be genuine and appropriate. Well timed and classy. If he knows he pleases you and that you think of him when he’s not around, it heightens anticipation. But too much of a good thing is just that—too much.”
“Got it.”
If I ever got caught, I wondered if Chris would thank me for sharing his truth, or resent me disclosing our secrets.
“Third is cognizance. You have to be aware of your body and his at all times.” This was the hardest of the three Cs. “When you’re pleasuring a man, you can take it from one dimensional to three with foreplay—using your entire body instead of just your mouth—and focus on the journey, not just the finale.”
I couldn’t help but think back to the first time Chris had shown me what he liked. I had been naïve, inexperienced. I lacked confidence because I lacked knowledge. Chris knew I wanted to make him happy, to learn how to please him, and who better to teach me than the man I loved. “There’s no way to know what to do if you don’t know what you’re feeling. Memorize the shape, size, color, and feel of every inch of my dick, the same way I know the slope of your side, the color of your nipples, and the precise place to touch your lips to make you moan.”
There were always pieces of him and our past flashing through my mind anytime I met with a client because he’d made it so easy for me to learn, and I wanted to teach people the same way. I tried to focus on the outcome and not the participant in this game. I forced myself to stay in character and push my past away.
“It should be all about him, and in the process, it will become all about you. Every encounter will be an exploration in sexual discovery. Any questions?”
Candi appeared to be thinking, but I wondered if she were playing the actions of giving a blowjob in her mind. Her lips puckered and then widened in an O before she came back to the present and said, “Nope.”
“Great. Let’s try some role-playing.”
“What?” The startled
gleam in her eyes was humorous, but only because I had a one-way ticket straight to hell on a short bus and tried to find amusement in her discomfort, therefore, masking my own.
“The best way to prepare you for putting this into practice is to pretend I’m Christopher.” I hoped calling him that versus Chris would separate who he was in my mind from who Candi would be performing with.
“But you’re a girl!” she whined. She was observant.
“And I’m fully clothed. You’re not going to touch me—at least not sexually. If you’d prefer, you can practice on Joe.”
I took the plastic blow-up doll out of my bag along with the pump. I didn’t use a sex doll, but it was crucial to have a figure to work with. Joe, my inflatable sidekick, brought heat to every woman’s cheeks he encountered. Not because he was all that impressive, but more because they were reluctant to act out what they might do with their partner…in my presence. But that same feeling showed up whether it was Joe or their husband when I wasn’t around, and this was a safe way for them to address it.
“Who’s Joe?”
I pointed to Joe as he filled with life on the floor. I stood, and Candi mirrored me. We looked nothing alike. Her skin was fair where mine was sun-kissed, she was petite where I was on the taller side of average, and her athletic build curved in ways my thin frame did not. But when I picked Joe up to hold him to my chest, Candi’s mouth hung open in awe or possibly shock.
“You want me to talk to a blow-up man?”
This was a typical response from nearly every woman when we first started, so it hadn’t surprised me. “The idea is for you to talk to Joe while I watch your interaction, the way you touch him—or don’t—so I can help you work on your approach and strengthen it. You want to have the best possible outcome right out of the gate, don’t you?”
Her chest rose as she drew in a deep breath and then fell as she released it—and apparently, her hesitation as well. “Yes.” Skeptically, she got down on her knees in front of him, and something in the way she watched me took me back to Chris’s dorm when I was nineteen.
“Men are visual creatures, Lexi. We like to touch, but we also like to see.”
I kneeled in front of him, studying his sweet, hazel eyes and hung on his every word. I’d found the holy grail, and I was determined to keep it for myself by making sure my boyfriend never desired another woman because he derived all his pleasure from me.
“Don’t think of your hands and your mouth as the only instruments available while you’re giving head. Be aware of your body, make it available for me to see or touch or both. You were given curves for me to caress and enjoy. If you never move from the position at my feet, I can’t access any of those gifts—I can’t even see them.”
I had repeated the words he’d used that day so many times it was like I’d memorized a script, and no better one had ever been written—not for this.
“I love the angle of your neck and the place where your hipbones jut out”—he squatted in front of me to touch the spot he spoke of—“and the weight of your breasts.” Chris leaned in to kiss my collarbone, then my throat, and finally, just behind my earlobe, heating the space between my legs. His thumb stroked my cheek, and I lingered in his touch, wanting his hands on my skin. Then he stood and my gaze followed. “But I don’t have access to any of my favorite parts of you when we’re like this. Use your body to entice me, play the game, draw out the journey. There’s rarely a need to race to the finish line.”
Nothing about that day had been fast, it was a slow burn that lasted into the night. Every inch of his body and mine had been thoroughly loved.
The words were just as meaningful whether they were uttered by the man who’d ruined me for all others or said by me to a woman eager to ruin her man. I squatted in my heels, turning my knees to the side of Joe while still keeping him balanced in front of me. And I gently reached out to touch her, saying, “Does he like your legs, or maybe your shoulders?” When I stood, her eyes remained on mine just as mine had with Chris. “You have to be aware of everything he loves about your body to showcase it like a trophy.”
“That gave me chills.” Candi ran her hands up and down her arms.
Me too, every single time.
It was easy to remember the Chris I’d known then. He had every quality women swooned over, but he’d been mine. The attention and affection he showed me were second to none, and he didn’t give that to anyone else—not friends, not family…just me. Now it belonged to the woman in front of me, and I had to find a way to capitalize on it while forgetting how I came about the information.
“Work with Joe, move him around. Practice ways to display your body and make it available.”
While Candi moved with my assistant, I tweaked things she did, showed her how to do them better, and helped her adjust her approach. But truth be told, my mind stayed stuck on Chris. And as much as I wished it were the memories we shared, it was the Chris of today showing up in my fantasies, not the one of my youth. The more I tried to engage, the easier I got thrown off course.
She’d been going to town with Joe, acting out a scene that would have made me proud any other day. Distracted, I had missed her standing and waving her hand in front of my face.
“Are you okay, Alex?”
I blinked and returned to the present. Mentally, I couldn’t shut down my heart or my memories. “Yes, I’m sorry.” The pitiful excuse for a smile not only didn’t deter her from probing, it apparently encouraged it.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Sure. Let me just sit right down and feed you a chapter from the story of my past. The one that includes me on my knees and your boyfriend in my mouth. “No. I’m good.”
Candi’s grin contorted into something mocking with a hint of sweetness intertwined. It was the same face Jasmine made when she wanted to show me up. “I’m a great listener.”
She sat on the chair, crossed her legs, and twirled her hair seemingly uninterested in her lesson.
“We should really focus on this.” I motioned to Joe.
“Are you dating anyone?” That came out of nowhere.
I figured the fastest way to move past this was short and sweet. “No.”
“That’s shocking.”
Not the response I anticipated. My lips pursed and my brow dipped…just before I took the bait. “How so?”
She leaned back with her hands on her knees like a little girl with a secret. “Well.” Her grin went goofy. “I’d just think with a job like this, men would be all over you.”
“It’s not widely known, Candi.” I giggled and then tried to redirect her. “You were doing really well with Joe. Do you think you’re ready to approach Christopher?”
I found her waving me off to be odd. That was the reason she’d hired me. She’d paid me a ton of money to help her seduce her man. Her sudden interest in my own relationship—or lack thereof—made me wary.
“Have you ever been in love?” Her eyes went back to that goofy animation she usually carried with her.
She wasn’t going to give up without a little information. I could keep it superficial, pack my inflatable man, and call it a night. “Once. Years ago.”
“What happened?”
“He chose another path after college.”
Joe whistled as I forced air from his plastic form trying to deflate him as quickly as possible. I was about to knife the guy to make it go faster.
“You ever wonder what happened to him?”
Jesus. There was no way she knew. Yet her line of questions made me wonder if I’d been found out. I wouldn’t be able to lie my way out of it. Jasmine was right. I was going to crash and burn—it wouldn’t be a little bonfire, either; this would end up like Hiroshima. I should have heeded her advice—walked away with my dignity and no one other than me being hurt. I should have thanked her for helping me realize just how badly this would go and for saving my heart. But I hadn’t.
“It was a long time ago.” I forced Joe back into the bag with his a
rm sticking out, still full of air.
“Do you miss him?”
I couldn’t do this. If Candi knew about Chris and me, she was just cruel, and if she didn’t, she’d be crushed when she found out. I refused to lie to her, so I ignored the question.
“It’s late. Why don’t you give me a call to schedule your next appointment?” I stood abruptly and grabbed my things.
Candi walked me to the door, and just before she opened it, she said, “Maybe he misses you, too. You should think about reaching out to him.”
I nodded politely, stepped out, and got into my car to drive home.
The commute from Roswell to the outskirts of Buckhead left me time to reflect on my job, Candi, and most importantly, Chris. I couldn’t allow that part of myself to be exposed again and certainly not to either one of them. The fact that I hadn’t been able to get him out of my head didn’t bode well for me. It didn’t matter if it was nineteen-year-old Chris or the twenty-seven-year-old version of who he was today—he was committed to someone else. Candi. I had to find a way to move on. But no matter what scenario played out in my mind, none of it ended well.
I had hoped with a little distance between myself and Candi that I might be able to find a way to continue with her as my client. Unfortunately, after Jasmine’s meddling and constant reminders of how poorly things had gone with our first meeting, it was inevitable. I couldn’t do this and maintain my sanity. I tortured myself over the last two days wondering how much Candi knew about my past with Chris and whether she was leading me to my own destruction, or if she’d merely been a blind squirrel who’d found a nut when prying into my personal life. Either way, I couldn’t risk it.
Every waking moment since I’d walked out of her house had been spent remembering what I lost, hating her for having it, and suffering because I couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t fair to either of us, and in the end, I couldn’t take her money or continue with her as my client. I’d never been in this situation and didn’t have a clue how to make things right other than the truth.
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