Twelve Nights

by Remy, Carole

Inside the diner, Angel carried her bagel and coffee to a sunny table by a window. She sipped the coffee slowly, wincing when the hot ceramic touched her bruised lip. She slathered the bagel with butter and cream cheese. Then she opened the newspaper to the personals and lifted the dripping pastry to her lips.

  Chapter 2

  Sun streamed through the window behind the desk, backlighting the occupant and throwing his visitor into stark relief. A ray glinted off the younger man’s tie clip and danced across the bare desktop.

  “So?” the voice behind the desk growled a challenge. He tossed a folded newspaper to his employee. “Sit down.”

  He waved the young man toward a deep leather chair. Cool blue eyes skimmed the circled ad.

  “Yours?” he asked.

  The older man nodded.

  “Your legal liability on this would be through the roof,” the lawyer spoke apologetically. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, but you can’t do it.”

  “Your job is to figure out how I can, Richard. Write a contract or something.”

  “Jimmy, be reasonable.”

  “I’m forty-two in two months. What have I got?”

  “Close to half a billion dollars,” the younger man offered.

  “A little over,” Jimmy shrugged. “What did you do last night, Richard?”

  “Me?” The lawyer hesitated then continued. “I left the office at about nine. I went home and watched the news and went to bed.”

  “Exactly. What did you eat for dinner?”

  “Stouffer’s lasagna,” Richard grinned.

  “We’re too solitary, Richard. When was the last time you had a date?”

  “I don’t date.”

  Jimmy observed the flush that ruddied his lawyer’s cheeks and remembered the quagmire from which he had plucked his most valuable employee.

  “But we’re not talking about me, Jimmy,” Richard continued. “You date.”

  “I don’t date, Richard, I liaise. Social climbers and sycophants, those are the women I meet.”

  “You have a niece and a nephew.”

  “Twice removed and living in Toronto,” Jimmy huffed.

  “You have your brother Danny.”

  “That’s true. You’re right. I have a brother. Don’t you ever want your own woman, Richard?”

  “Jimmy,” the lawyer ignored the question, then hesitated.

  “It’s okay. Spit it out.”

  “You can get any woman you want, Jimmy. Just crook your finger.”

  “I don’t meet nice normal women, Richard. I want a woman who won’t particularly care about the money.”

  “An ad in the paper won’t get you somebody you’re going to want, Jimmy.”

  “So, give me a choice.”

  “Go to church.”

  Jimmy snorted. “You know what they say about rich men and camels. The nuns wrecked me for good, Richard. I’m not going to church.”

  “You can’t kidnap a woman for twelve nights.”

  “How is it kidnapping if I pay her $120,000?”

  “I don’t think you can ‘buy’ a normal woman like you want, Jimmy.”

  “I buy every woman that I meet. You don’t date a guy with half a billion dollars unless you want to be bought.”

  “I don’t see how this ad is going to help.”

  “Maybe it won’t,” Jimmy admitted. “You want to know the truth?”

  Richard nodded.

  “I got drunk last night and I phoned the New York fucking Times. I just made up the ad on the phone to the girl.”

  “And…”

  “So, I’m gonna do it. You figure out how to protect me, protect my money.”

  “Okay.” The younger man lifted his hands in defeat. “Let’s look at some logistics.”

  “Now we’re talking.” Jimmy rubbed his hands on the knees of his pants. “Get that legal brain in gear.”

  “I figure at least a thousand responses.”

  “Ten thousand.”

  Richard’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the circulation of the New York Times?”

  “Ask Danny.” Jimmy pushed a button on his phone. “Find Danny.”

  “How do you want to narrow it down to a reasonable number? I assume you want to interview, what, ten?”

  “Make it twenty. Hire a firm to read the letters. No, you read them.”

  Richard grimaced.

  “I don’t pay you $300 an hour to make faces, Richard.” He looked across as the door to the office swung inward on silent hinges. “Come on in, Danny.”

  Richard stood and offered his chair to Jimmy’s brother. Danny looked ten years younger than his thirty-two years. If Jimmy had inherited the brains of the family, Danny had gotten the looks. He was tall and firmly built, with lean muscles that filled out his hand-tailored suit. A single lock of dark blonde hair fell strategically across his forehead. He ignored the lawyer and sat on the corner of Jimmy’s desk. Richard reclaimed his chair.

  “Circulation of the New York Times, Danny,” Jimmy stated rather than asked.

  “One million twenty-nine thousand two hundred eighty-seven on Monday through Saturday. One million six…”

  “How the hell did you know that, Danny?” Richard interrupted. Jimmy smiled.

  “Read an article in Newsweek,” Danny replied, his words clipped and precise. “Total is accurate as of September 30, 1996.”

  He picked up the folded section of the New York Times from Jimmy’s desktop.

  “What do you think of …” Richard’s words petered out as he caught the frantic silencing motion of Jimmy’s hand. Danny watched the by-play impassively.

  “Can’t wave me off, Jimmy,” he told his brother. “Have to know the rest of the sentence.”

  “I put an ad in the paper,” Jimmy explained. “Nothing serious.”

  “‘Rich man wants companion for 12 nights.’” Danny quoted. “‘Attractive normal female. Never married. No children. Over thirty years old. No prostitutes.’”

  Richard chuckled and shook his head.

  “How did you know…” Jimmy began, his face red.

  “Just knew,” Danny shrugged. “If one out of every two readers is a woman, and one out of every 100 women answers the ad, you will get 5146 responses.”

  “Jesus,” Jimmy shook his head. “Maybe only one in a thousand will answer. Richard, you can fly to New York and pick out the best ones.”

  “I’ll arrange for the responses to be shipped here to Vancouver,” Richard amended, “and I’ll work with the secretaries…”

  “No,” Jimmy interrupted. His voice was calm but edged in iron. “No one outside this room.”

  “I’ll help you, Richard,” Danny offered.

  The lawyer’s eyes rolled. He caught Jimmy’s glare and adjusted his expression to bland acceptance. Jimmy sat for a moment in silence.

  “Good,” he decided. “Richard, you skim out the crazies. Give any possibles to Danny.”

  “But…” Richard ventured tentatively.

  Jimmy shook his head.

  “Going now,” Danny announced and walked quickly out the door, closing it precisely behind him.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to let Danny get involved in this?” Richard’s voice was low even though the door had shut with a solid thud.

  “He’s not the brightest tack on the board,” Jimmy admitted, “but he has a real sixth sense. You remember the Borden merger?”

  “One hundred twenty-three million and change in three months.”

  “Danny’s idea.”

  “What?”

  Jimmy nodded. “Besides, he has total recall. He can recite back any letters I want to hear.”

  “He’s your brother,” Richard gave in. “Does he ever …”

  “Show interest in women?” Jimmy finished the sentence. “Yeah. Keep your eye out for someone for him. Yourself too.”

  “Ha,” Richard snorted, then reddened.

  “Suit yourself,” Jimmy waved off Richard’s half-apology. “Just write me up an iron-clad contract,
and weed the list down to twenty or so.”

  “About the contract,” Richard cleared his throat and continued. “I’ll need to know pretty specifically what you’ll expect the young woman to do.”

  “Just put in that she won’t get damaged.” Jimmy’s face was as red as Richard’s.

  Richard shook his head. “Kramer versus Johnson. Ohio, 1994. You want to get her to agree specifically in writing to everything you want to do. Otherwise she can sue.”

  “Put them all in then,” Jimmy blustered. “How the hell do I know now what I’ll feel like doing then?”

  “Vaginal intercourse?” Richard’s voice was clinical and impersonal. He might have been making a grocery list.

  Jimmy nodded.

  “Discipline?”

  “You sound like a fucking machine, Richard. Ha, was that a pun?” Jimmy swiveled to look out over the water toward Jericho Beach. “Put it in.”

  “Just a lawyer. What about bondage?”

  Jimmy waved assent with his hand, then cleared his throat.

  “Add sodomy.” His voice was a croak. “Shit. Screw the contract. Screw the whole thing.”

  Richard ignored his eruption.

  “Artificial stimulation?”

  “You mean dildos? I guess.”

  “Group sex?”

  “What the heck.” Jimmy swung back to face his lawyer and his eye caught Richard’s hand adjusting the bulge in his trousers. He laughed and barked, “Put in every God-damned thing you ever heard of. Just don’t ask me any more questions.”

  Chapter 3

  Agnes Marie Trout, known to her friends as Aggie, wrapped the scarf firmly around her neck. The Cincinnati wind bit the air in late fall and she wasn’t going to chance a cold throat. She was as tall, thin and auburn-haired as her identical twin sister, Angela, but she hid her figure under layers of baggy clothes and wore her hair in a careless shag. She thought the men, and sometimes women, who stared as she passed were startled by her Annie Hall clothing.

  Aggie had decided to go into the library early. A shipment of books had arrived yesterday and she was eager to get them catalogued and shelved. Her small branch didn’t have many employees and though she was the head librarian she didn’t like to leave all the grunt work to the other staff. She backed her car out of the garage and headed down the quiet street, secure in the knowledge that she would be the first to arrive at the library by at least an hour.

  Burger King coffee was definitely better than McDonald’s, Aggie thought as she pulled into the drive through. She winced as the young woman handed her the hot cup. Her wrist was sore. She must have slept on it wrong. She balanced an open syrup container on a magazine on the passenger seat and dipped French toast sticks gingerly as she drove the three miles to the library. In the parking lot she savored the last few swallows of coffee in silence.

  After she locked her car, she rotated her wrist slowly. Still stiff. Could Angela…?, she wondered then dismissed the thought. She wheeled the bin for overnight book returns through the heavy double entrance door. Four hours later, the new books were catalogued and shelved, the preschoolers had listened spellbound to I Love You Forever and the library had settled into its quiet morning routine.

  Aggie sat behind her desk and smiled complacently. Life was good. Lunch would bring Andrew; her mind skipped to visions of a quickie, then she laughed at herself for entertaining the thought. Andrew wasn’t a quickie type of guy. At twenty-five he was three years younger than Aggie. Though he didn’t know it, he was a nerd, and Aggie loved him for it.

  Nerds made the best boyfriends. When he wasn’t with her, he was on his computer. If he was on the Internet, she knew he wasn’t downloading smut. More likely playing chess with his long-distance buddies. Maybe he was a little slim and pale, but at least he was tall. At five foot ten, Aggie paid attention to height. The jangling phone interrupted her thought.

  “Cincinnati Library, Oakville Branch,” she answered automatically.

  “Hi, Pookie.”

  “Andrew,” Aggie protested, “you can’t call me that at work. What if someone else had answered the phone?”

  “I know your voice,” Andrew explained. “I can’t come for lunch today.”

  Andrew never beat around the bush. Telephone conversations were like shorthand.

  “That’s okay,” Aggie agreed. “What’s up?”

  “The boss has a client in from Sacramento. I have to explain the new network software protocols.” The explanation was a long one for Andrew. Aggie wondered how the client presentation would go, though she knew that Andrew was painstakingly meticulous when detailing computer dogma. He just didn’t like talking on the phone.

  “Okay,” she agreed again. “Good luck with it. Come over after work.”

  “I can’t be there till 5:45.”

  Aggie laughed. Andrew usually came at 5:30.

  “That’s all right,” she reassured him. He really was a dear.

  That evening Andrew arrived at Aggie’s small brick house on the stroke of 5:45. He knocked on the dark oak door, though Aggie had given him a key months before.

  “Come on in,” she greeted him.

  He leaned forward into her kiss and took her face in his hands. Minutes later they were naked on Aggie’s old-fashioned sleigh bed. The metal slats bounced with every movement and amplified Andrew’s enthusiastic pumping. He came with a whoop and kissed Aggie’s cheeks and eyes and chin.

  “Did you come?” he asked, barely out of breath.

  “Yes,” Aggie lied.

  “I can do it again,” Andrew offered. Ah, youth.

  “Maybe after dinner,” Aggie agreed.

  Andrew rolled off her and headed toward the bathroom.

  “What do you want to order?” he called back over his shoulder.

  Though Aggie looked domesticated, she was near feral in her avoidance of household tasks. An older woman came in once a week and did what she could to keep order in the house. Aggie took her clothes to a laundry service. Her kitchen contained not one pot or pan, but a double set of dishes and cutlery and two dishwashers so she could manage until the housekeeper’s weekly visit. Breakfast was Burger King coffee and lunch at a rotation of five favorite eateries. Dinner however was eaten in the house, usually with Andrew, and thus the need for dishes.

  “How about Chinese?” Andrew’s voice drifted in from the bathroom. He was running a shower. Aggie thought about joining him. But her hair would get wet and she hated to go to sleep with a damp head. She stuck her head in the bathroom door.

  “We had Chinese on Tuesday. How about Mexican?”

  Andrew poked his head out around the curtain. Without his thick glasses and with his hair slicked down, he looked closer to twelve than twenty-five. Aggie smiled indulgently.

  “If you really want Chinese,” she offered, “we can.”

  “Mexican is fine,” Andrew shouted over the spray. “Try the new one over on Beechmont.”

  An hour later the remnants of tacos and enchiladas littered Aggie’s scarred oak table. The dining room furniture had been her maternal grandparents’ and was a comforting inheritance.

  “Do you want some more refried beans?” Andrew asked.

  “No,” Aggie laughed. “I’ll fart too much.”

  “Fart all you want,” Andrew offered. “I don’t care.”

  “I will,” Aggie agreed, but she passed on the beans.

  Thirty minutes later they were back naked on the bed.

  “Do you want the top or the bottom, Aggie?”

  “Do you want to try something different?”

  “That depends what,” Andrew hedged.

  “How about on the table?”

  “Won’t that be uncomfortable for you?”

  “I don’t mind. Do you want to try it?”

  “In the dining room?”

  “That’s where the table is.”

  “But then we’ll think about it, you know, the next time we’re eating.”

  “That’s the idea,” Aggie
teased. She pulled a packet of condoms from the bedside drawer. Then she took Andrew’s hand and led him out the door. As they passed the closed curtains in the living room, he reached down an automatic hand to cover his limp cock. Aggie detoured into the bathrom and grabbed a large fluffy towel.

  “You lie down first,” she directed Andrew as she spread the towel on the table. “I’m going to eat you for dessert.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Andrew scrambled to lie back on the table. Aggie grabbed his narrow hips and pulled his buttocks to the end of the table.

  “Put some chairs for my feet,” Andrew directed. “They’re dangling.”

  Once Andrew was comfortable, Aggie leaned between his knees and stroked her tongue up his rising organ.

  “Yum.”

  She stroked and teased until the cock was solid and Andrew moaning, then she eased her mouth down over the shaft. Andrew immediately started to pump, but she pinned his hips to the table.

  “Hold still,” she directed.

  “Don’t stop,” he gasped.

  Her mouth descended again and her teeth nuzzled the ridges of Andrew’s now throbbing organ. Still holding him pinned to the table, Aggie stroked her lips and teeth up and down the eager cock, sucking and milking it to rock solid readiness. When she could no longer contain the pulsing of Andrew’s hips, she lifted her mouth off of him.

  “No,” he groaned. “You have to finish me.”

  Unrestrained, his hips pounded up and down into the empty air. His right hand grabbed at his cock to massage it to completion, but Aggie grabbed the hand in both hers and held it tight.

  “Do me now,” she panted.

  “What?”

  “I want to have an orgasm now,” she demanded.

  “Now?” Andrew sounded bewildered. “Now?”

  “Yes,” Aggie insisted. “I’ll bring you off after you make me come.”

  Andrew struggled to sit up, his eyes drugged but willing.

  “Okay,” he groaned as his turgid cock waved in the air in front of him.

  Aggie helped him off the table and lay down in his place. Ignoring the chairs, she placed her feet on his shoulders as he stood between her legs.

  “Eat me,” she offered and commanded. “I’m dessert.”

  “Aggie,” Andrew protested. “I’m not very good.”