Just Like That

by Nicola Rendell

  Guppy himself.

  He skids to a stop and stares at Maisie, who—incidentally—looks fucking perfect for the job. Penny told her to go heavy on the eyeliner, and she did. She’s not nearly as sexy as Penny was in the costume, but there’s that little bit of crazy in her eyes that really puts the whole thing right over the top.

  And Guppy agrees. I look at the clock. 5:54 p.m., and I realize from his posture that the nightly love affair with his bed has been supplanted by something much more alluring.

  “Oh, God,” Penny mutters, taking the pulse of the slowly unraveling situation, same as I am. She downs her wine. “Guppy. Bedtime.” Her voice is calm and firm, with a tiny undercurrent of concern.

  But Guppy isn’t hearing her. Guppy is in heaven. Right in front of him is a fox as big as he is, and he’s falling in love with her right in front of us. “It’s me,” Maisie says. “It’s your Auntie Maisie.”

  Guppy gives her hand a hard sniff and then humps the air in two undulations of his body. “Uh-oh,” says Maisie.

  “Not the pink rocket, not right now,” Penny mutters, trying to distract him with his armadillo.

  But not even the armadillo can stop this train from leaving the station. Guppy takes another step toward Maisie and raises himself up on his huge back legs, placing his enormous front paws on her bare shoulders. Maisie starts giggling, and he doubles down with the air humps.

  As soon as Maisie gets the giggles, so does Penny, and then it’s like a circle of positive feedback as one laugh feeds the other. Guppy gives his sexy new fox friend a huge lick across the face and his hips bounce along in the air. Maisie is so overcome with laughter that she ends up backing herself right onto the sofa, sinking down onto the floral pattern in a silent, full-body laugh.

  “Guppppppy,” Penny tries to say through voice-shaking giggles. “No. Bedtime.”

  I clear my throat sternly. “Car-car, Guppy.”

  Penny tries another one. “Beach.”

  My turn again. “Brekkie.”

  Not a fucking single syllable gets through, not least because Maisie is squealing and laughing. Floral throw pillows tumble from the couch, and the wicker squeaks with every thrust.

  I pry him off of Maisie in a backwards bear hug and carry him off to the bedroom, while Penny walks in front of us with a handful of cookies. He’s panting and drooling and still dry humping the air. “Easy, man. Easy.” I feel like I’m trying to reassure a buddy after a bar brawl. Penny closes the bedroom door and I set him down on her bed, where he flops onto the blanket, exhausted.

  From the kitchen, Maisie hoots, a long, delighted, “Wheeeeeee!” and I hear her pouring some wine for herself.

  “That was like something out of one of your nature shows,” Penny says sweetly, patting him on the head. He gobbles up the cookies and rolls onto his side. Canine vigor spent.

  Penny steps away from the bed and looks up at me. “That was really… I’ve never seen anything like it. I almost didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away.” She bites back a laugh, like she doesn’t want to embarrass poor Guppy any more than he already has himself.

  “At least the costume passed the test.”

  Penny nods slowly as we turn to go. “It sure did.”

  Just as I open the bedroom door for Penny, guiding her through, we hear the familiar noise of Skype ringing from my laptop. This time, though, it’s not the account I normally use, the one that belongs mostly to Penny now. This is a new account that belongs to FoxyLoxy, which “Foxy” used to bait Dickerson into a virtual yiff. And now here he is, right on time.

  I take a few long strides down the hallway to the laptop. I click record on the screen-cast software, and pull out Maisie’s chair for her. Penny straightens Maisie’s muzzle and cleans a little smudge of eyeliner out from under Maisie’s eyelashes with a damp fingertip, like she’s doing makeup before the five o’clock news.

  “You ready?” I ask her as Penny steps away, hands to her mouth in anticipation.

  Maisie slugs back a gulp of chardonnay, slams the glass on the table, and says, “Hell yes, I am! Roll tape.”

  * * *

  Maisie is flirtatious, coy, and she keeps doing this thing where she ruffles up her hair and kind of scratches her furry ears. Every fucking time she does it, Dickerson gasps like she just grabbed his balls.

  “So, big boy,” Maisie says, putting her elbows together on the kitchen table and pouting, “How was your day?”

  I lean into Penny’s ear and whisper, “Has she done this before?”

  Penny raises a finger and pulls her to-do list pad from the fridge. On the other end of the video feed, Dickerson talks about himself not as Dickerson but as Panda Paul, who has a whole legend of his own, which is mind-blowingly detailed. Born in the bamboo forests of Thailand, the alpha male of the pack, sire to sixteen cubs, on and on and on. The dude is intense. But Maisie doesn’t flinch, not even once. The weirder the details, the more interested she looks. “I’d let you sire my cubs any day,” she says, with an actual purr.

  On the pad of paper, Penny writes, She had a super-kinky boyfriend in Denmark for four years. They never met in person, but he asked her to marry him 17 times. So, you know.

  Makes perfect fucking sense. Together we watch Maisie work her charms. The whole time, I keep my hand tightly around Penny, and without even meaning to, I find myself feeling up her ass. She swats my hand away.

  “Sorry,” I mouth.

  And she wiggles her sweet little finger in the air in a way that doesn’t make me feel bad about it, not one fucking bit.

  I take the pad of paper and rip off Penny’s note to me. On the back of the page, in clear capital letters, I write down a message for Maisie. We need him without his mask.

  Penny slides it across the table for her, and Maisie makes an almost imperceptible bob of her chin to say she’s got it.

  “How about you let me see that face of yours, Paul. I want to see the man behind the beast.”

  Except Panda Paul is deep in character. “This is my face, Foxy Loxy. I’m Panda Paul. This is me.”

  Christ. Next to me, Penny winces. She touches her fingertips to her ears like she’d really, really like to drown it all out with a good loud la-la-la-la.

  But Maisie, she’s a fucking pro. “I know it is, Paul. But I’m very curious as to what sort of human male would have a booming, beautiful voice like yours. I want to know the animal behind the animal. So virile. So masculine. So alpha.”

  There’s a long pause, filled only by the hollow sound of Dickerson breathing behind his mask. Vaguely like Darth Vader, but with more fur involved.

  “Please,” Maisie pleads.

  “Foxy, this is my face.”

  Maisie does her ear scratch and then paws seductively at her muzzle.

  Panda Paul groans again, but doesn’t seem to be ready to take the bait, not yet. That’s when Penny grabs the pad of paper and writes out a message. She writes it so fast, I can’t even fucking see it before she’s slid across the table to Maisie.

  I watch Maisie read the note, and then she raises her gaze to the webcam, batting her long fake lashes. “You sound like that guy who played Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck. Mmmmmm.”

  “Really?” says Panda Paul.

  “Oh yes,” coos Maisie.

  I step around to the side of the living room, out of frame but close enough to see the screen. Penny stays where she is in the kitchen, holding her wine in her hand and grimacing like she’s bracing for a plane crash.

  “Please, Paul.” Maisie says, and adds a tiny, high-pitched, “Arf?”

  That little yelp seals the deal. Dickerson puts his furry panda paws to the sides of his mask. There’s a rustle, and the sound of some separating Velcro.

  And then there he is. Dick Dickerson, with a panda mask on top of his head, looking sweaty and drunk on all this kink. “This is me, Foxy Loxy. Here I am. Rawr!”

  From the kitchen, Penny squeaks with delight, and I stand behind Maisie, letting my face get into
the frame.

  “What in the ever-loving… Macklin!” He yanks his mask back down, keeping his furry hands on the sides of his face, like the losing mascot at a college basketball game.

  “Get your fat fingers out of Port Flamingo, Dickerson.”

  “Leave my mom alone!” Penny chimes in from off screen.

  “And stop being such a turd,” Maisie adds.

  He groans from under his mask and puts his hands to his googly panda eyes. “Goddamn you, Macklin. I knew it. Never trust a man in a lavender dress shirt!”

  “Fuck you, Dick.” I've got him where I want him, and now it’s time for the death blow. “Knock off your shit or else this video goes viral faster than you can say ‘bunker shot.’”

  “Grrrrrr!” says Panda Paul.

  I give him the old Semper Fi salute. “Pleasure doing business with you, Adolf.”

  End tape.

  * * *

  After Maisie leaves, and after we toast each other and a job well done a handful of times, to partners and crime, to the downfall of Dickerson, and all the rest, I hoist her up on the kitchen counter, like I had her that first night.

  “You’re kind of a hero, you know,” she says, biting her lip and tipping back into my arms. I can tell she’s a little tipsy. Fuck, yes.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask, and pull her toward me, sliding both her skirt and her French maid’s apron up her legs.

  “Not for dinner, I’m not.” She hooks her finger over my belt and wraps her calves around my ass.

  I hoist her off the counter and take her by the hand into the bedroom. Guppy stumbles out of his Foxy Loxy dreams and trots off toward the kitchen.

  Walking her backward, her knees bend as she gets to the mattress. She plants her hands and scoots toward the pillows. Both the sundress and the apron ride up her thighs, showing off her panties. She tugs my shirt off over my head, and it falls to the ground. Her legs fall open for me automatically, like she knows exactly what I need. I take her panties with my teeth and drag them aside, hooking them with my forefinger to expose her pussy in all its fucking glory. I sink right into her, pulling at her clit with my teeth, and reach up with my other hand to pinch her nipple. She responds to the pinch with a shudder, but then she relaxes underneath me, trusting me to do what needs to be done.

  Tangled up in all these last few hours is a big fear of mine. She’s a beautiful woman. I’ll be three thousand miles away. I’m not so fucking cocky as to think that she might not meet someone else while we’re apart, and I wouldn’t blame her. It is possible—the worst fucking case scenario—that this is the last time I'll ever be with her, and I've got to be ready for that. So once I’ve gotten a taste of her, once I’m high on the way she feels and the way she smells, like seashells, like the ocean outside, I pull my mouth from her pussy, and wipe my lips on her leg. I take my phone from my pocket, and then unzip my pants and take off my boxers. I kneel on either side of her, with my cock on her belly and take a shot of that. A shot of her pussy. A close up of my cock against her clit, with the edge of her panties in the frame. Another close-up of her nipple pinched between my fingers.

  She reaches out for my phone and flips through them. “Oh God,” she says through gritted teeth.

  “I want plenty of those, okay? When we’re apart? Send me all your filth.”

  She nods, looking sad already. “I’ll fill that Skype window up with so much skin, you’ll be afraid to open it in public.”

  “That is what I’m talking about.” I toss my phone on the bed and drag my hands down her body, trying to cover every fucking inch of her with my prints, obsessed with the idea of marking her as mine. The bruise on her hip is still there, so I grab a shot of that as well. “I’d fucking love to see that as a tattoo.” I press my fingers to the spot.

  “I’ll do it. All you’ve got to do is say the word.”

  She is a fucking goddess, and that sweet shell is only for show. She’s all fire under there. Exactly what I’ve always needed. “I don’t want any other man to touch you ever again.”

  Her eyebrow goes up. “Possessive looks fantastic on you.”

  I stand at the foot of the bed and pull off my shirt. “You make me fucking wild with it. Insane to make you mine.”

  She laughs a little, turning her cheek to the sheets and letting me see that long gorgeous line of her throat. Her fingers move up to her starfish pendant, and she brings it to her lips. “You already gave me your key.”

  “Yeah,” I say, looking her up and down, taking in every last fucking inch. “But I want to give you a lot more than that.”

  She watches me like she doesn’t know what to say. Or like she’s trying to decipher it. And for one second, I’m thinking, Fuck, man. You pushed too hard.

  But then she places her feet to my thighs, pushing her ass up off the bed. Her back bows and makes her abdomen curve outwards in this sexy, exaggerated way. For one fucking second, in that bend in her stomach, I can see what she might look like not as she is now, but…

  I run my hand over that bowed curve and the tightly stretched skin over her belly button. She’s got to be thinking what I’m thinking. It’s so fucking obvious here between us. It’s hanging in the air like an unsaid thought. It’s the most human goddamned thing, which would bind us past distance and jobs. Past hometowns and five-year plans. The thing I never even considered until she started letting me put my cum inside her. “Goddamn it, Penny. Don’t tease me.”

  But she doesn’t giggle or turn her cheek. She doesn’t play demure and bat her lashes. She doesn’t snicker. She holds my stare and says, “I’m not teasing you, Russ. You want me to be yours, make me yours.”

  She bows her stomach further, exaggerating that imaginary place.

  Holy shit. This perfect woman, this gorgeous creature, by my side forever? All the years roll out in front of me, one snapshot after another. “If that happens, we can’t stop with one.”

  “Not one. Three. Five. Seven. Nine,” she says, now smiling a little. She opens her legs wider, and I sink down into her deeper. Without even needing to guide my shaft, I push inside her, shifting her panties aside with my cock. When I’m truly balls deep, I pull her into me even farther, hooking my fingers over her shoulders and covering her as much as I can with my body. Because I want to protect her, I want to devour her, I want to be her everything. Forever and fucking ever.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” I say, and put my hand on her belly. “I want to be clear about that.”

  She nods, and into my ear she whispers, “I want that to be the risk every time you come inside me. Every single time.”

  “Fuck. Penny.”

  She gives me a ball-busting squeeze. “Every time.”

  Fuck. But as usual, her words, her body, her moans and curled toes, they make me want more. She makes me so fucking greedy for her—to be more, to have more, to take her to the limit. To be filthy, and possessive, and never apologize.

  My lips are right against her ear, and I can taste her perfume on her skin. “I want to fuck my baby into you. I don’t need papers, I don’t need rings. I want to knock you up and make you mine. Simple as that.”

  She presses her head back into the mattress, putting an inch between her eyes and mine. I move my right hand down onto her ass and grip it hard, digging my fingers into that perfect, soft flesh. Her knees fall back into the good, old-fashioned missionary.

  She places her lips to my ear now, and her breath warms my cheek. I give her one slow drive, and then another, which is when she finally says, “Do it, Russ. Get me pregnant, if you haven’t already.”

  And with those words, the deepest desire I never knew I had comes fucking unleashed.

  * * *

  We lie in bed for hours, her with her head resting on my arm, me gently stroking her hair. We take a midnight walk in the moonlight along the beach. We make a plan for me to come back in two weeks, and for me to fly her up to see me two weeks after that. At the end of the Point, she turns to me and loops her arms
up around my neck.

  “I’m going to miss you so, so much.” I watch a tear slide down her cheek, shimmering in the bluish moon rays.

  “How about I see if I can push back the contract signing? I'll do anything for you, Penny. Just tell me what you need.”

  She doesn’t answer me. For the first fucking time, she doesn’t give it to me straight. And what I need straight, right now, is for her to say all the big things that seem too soon to say. Yes. Now. Forever. You and me. Give up everything. Take a chance on this. But she doesn’t. Instead, she wipes her cheek against my shirt, and shakes her head. “Two weeks,” she says, with lips quivering, breaking my goddamned heart.

  57

  Penny

  I follow him to the rental car drop off. I park in the waiting spot and get out, keeping my hand in his every step of the way. Every single thing needs to be memorized. The way he walks, the way his pants hug that sexy tush, his body. His eyes. He puts the keys and the contract onto the counter, and slides them across to the attendant. I don’t notice anything or anybody, except for him. The noise of the television seems very far away, and the only thing I’m really aware of—really need to feel—is him beside me.

  He pays his bill, and we leave the little cube of a rental car office. He puts his suitcase into the back of my Bronco and slams the tailgate shut. Cupping his hand to his forehead, he shields his face from the sun and looks down at me.

  It’s like every single minute is an eternity. I don’t want them to pass, and yet I know they are ticking by. Each second is one fewer that belongs to us.

  Behind him is a clump of palm trees, swaying in the breeze. I take my phone from my pocket and open up the camera.

  I get up onto my tiptoes and plant a kiss on his cheek, snapping the photo as I do. I can’t even bear to look at it, not here. Not now. Not yet.

  “Send that to me, okay?” he says.