The Cougar Book

by Jolie Du Prè

  Guy tensed. His shaft swelled in my mouth and started to spurt. His climax seemed to surprise him. A prostate massage will do that.

  I sat up and parted my lips, letting him see his cream in my mouth and on my tongue. I drew in a long, steady breath and exhaled.

  “Dirty, dirty girl.”

  I smiled, breathed in again, breathed out, and swallowed. “Now,” I said as I released his bonds, “you do me.”

  He pounced. One minute I was in charge, the next I was helpless. He pinned me to the bed. His arms were surprisingly muscular when tensed. I struggled a little, thrilled to discover he was so much stronger than I.

  “Maybe I should tie you up,” he muttered. “But there are other ways to tame a filly.”

  What started as a giggle turned to a moan as he buried his head between my legs. His mouth surrounded my nether lips; his tongue slowly traveled up between them, dipping into the hole and out again and circling my clit at the conclusion of each languid lap.

  My legs began trembling. “Please,” I whispered. “Stay on my clit?”

  He ignored me.

  I put my hand to his head, marveling at the texture of his black hair. So fine. So thick. I stroked his head, and any thoughts of trying to make him do it my way vanished. It was perfect. His tongue tasted me, tortured my entrance with shallow thrusts, found my clit, circled, and then abandoned it, only to start again, from the bottom up.

  Perfect.

  When I came, it was as if he’d pulled the orgasm from deep within me with his lips and tongue. As if he’d sucked it to the surface and set it free.

  Before the last paroxysm had shuddered through my body Guy was mounting me, his cock as hard as ever.

  “Goddammit!” I whipped my head from side to side as a fresh wave of desire rolled through me.

  Guy propped himself up, his hands on either side of my head, and gave it to me good. Hard. Good. So hard. So good.

  When I came I locked my gaze with his, using his baby blues to keep me from exploding. Then his eyes closed and he grinned wide and said, “Yesss . . .” and I knew he’d climaxed too.

  I wanted to keep him forever but life’s not like that. I could clothe him, and feed him, and fuck him, and I did. But I couldn’t keep him. Life goes on, things change. Boyfriends resurface, suddenly insecure and looking for a commitment. Life is strange.

  And so we come to the eve of my wedding. I dial a number, and in surprisingly little time, Guy’s ragamuffin gang shuffles into my condo, led by the suspicious and spunky girl named Willow.

  In the end he goes quietly. They convene on the balcony, in the rain, for a few minutes of intense conversation. When they return he’s among them. Back where he belongs. Willow picks up his jute bag and slings it over his shoulder.

  Guy stops in the doorway. His voice is anguished. “What about love?”

  Words fail me. His friends surround him, protecting him. They leave. The door closes.

  I step out onto the balcony and stare at the stars and the full moon.

  Tomorrow, I’ll be a Mrs. Again. The night after that, I’ll be gazing at the constellations of a different hemisphere. Brian is taking me to his villa in Negril for our honeymoon. If everything works out between us, it’ll be ours. If not, well, then it’ll be mine.

  A few nights after that, I’ll slip out to find the taxi stand my friends have told me about. You can get anything you want there, for a price. A ride around the world.

  “What about love?” I wink at the moon. “Gonna get me some sweet, young, midnight love.”

  It might just be the rain blurring my vision, but I swear, the lascivious bitch winks back.

  Sally Jean, the Dishroom Queen

  Bill Brent

  That’s how these problems always start: Just some bright idea I had.

  It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. I just wanted to make the rent. That’s all, honest. It was nearing the first of the month and I really didn’t want to explain to Ol’ Grizzly Jowls—my nickname for my ancient landlord—why mine was, um, not completely existent.

  Plus, it was a grim, raw day, which always gnaws at my crotch anyhow. And there he was, shivering in the breeze: Wastrel-Boy, huddled in the doorway of my—formerly our—apartment building. He looked up at me imploringly as I approached with my key.

  “Sod off,” I growled, in what I hoped was a fair approximation of his new girlfriend’s British accent.

  “Can we talk?” he pleaded, the annoyance creeping into his voice. One hand went for my pepper spray.

  “I said get lost,” I replied, “And don’t come back, or I’ll go to court.” I pulled the lobby door until it locked behind me, grateful that Ol’ Grizzly Jowls had re-keyed the front entrance so promptly.

  He banged on the glass door, which told me all I needed to know. She’d already given him the bum’s rush—nice going, new girlfriend.

  As the elevator door shut smoothly, sealing me off from Loser Boy’s rage, I prayed that my landlord was out for the afternoon. He’d done enough for me already this month. His apartment was directly above that entrance, and I sure didn’t want him to witness my ex’s unresolved mama drama.

  In any case, I didn’t have Slacker Boy’s share of the rent. Not that he’d given it to me more than half the time anyhow.

  No second chances for loser boys.

  So right then, I made up my mind: No matter what it took, I would make the rent by the fifth of the month. Penalty-free living was my goal. No late fees. And there’s nothing like pissing me off to get my grim determination going full-bore. According to Mom, I have been this way for every one of my forty-four years.

  Double-locked inside, with the chain bolt on, I poured myself a Fresca and sat down to fully digest the reality of my predicament. Even with my check coming in on the third, I would still be exactly three hundred ten dollars short. Sure, I could ask Ol’ Grizzly Jowls for some leeway, but that would just give the leering old letch an edge over me. Somehow I knew he would use it to unfair advantage.

  No penalties.

  I picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Hello, Myrna?”

  “Sal?”

  My frustration came tumbling out. “Yeah, it’s Sally. Look, I know it’s after hours and all, but it’s an emergency. Can you get me some temp shifts doing evenings for the next couple of weeks or so? I don’t care where. I’ll do anything, even bedpans at the VA. You know the story with my ex. I just need some fast extra cash to make rent and here it is, already close to the first.”

  I could hear the tumblers clicking in Myrna’s mind during the long silence. “Anything, hmmm?”

  “Yeah. Seriously.”

  “Okay. There’s usually some slots open in the dishroom out at the University. You know, the one that’s by the dorms there? They contract out.”

  “Washing dishes? Sure, I’ll take it.”

  “Okay. Lemme look up the details as soon as I get in tomorrow morning, and I’ll ring ya back, okay?”

  “Phone me, text me, send carrier pigeon. Anything. You’re an angel.”

  “Okay. Talk t’ya in the morning.”

  Myrna pulled some strings and got me started the very next night. Soon I was on the fourth evening in a row of moonlighting. My day job performance was already suffering, and now I had full-blown dishpan hands. As my blisters and calluses increased, my resolve was weakening. I called Myrna during my lunch break.

  “Hello, Myrna?”

  “Hey, how’s it goin’ at the dishroom?”

  “Oh, you know how it is,” I sighed wearily. “My blisters have blisters. I just need a reality check, friend to friend. Tell me again why I don’t need a live-in boyfriend to cover half the rent.”

  “Because when two people try to run each other off the road, it definitely means that the relationship is over.”

  “Oh. Right. Thanks.”

  Emotional intelligence has never been my strong suit.

  There are four stations to cover in your basic cafeteria di
shroom: (1) scraping (grab trays off the incoming belt, remove utensils and receptacles, dump everything else in the trash can); (2) spraying (hit those puppies with a high-pressure hanging hose); (3) sterilizing (load that junk into giant spiked trays for the dishwashing machine); and, finally, stacking (grab the finished trays, unload the cleaned-up crap, and sort it onto the rolling stainless cart for return). Repeat this grubby, mind-numbing ritual ad nauseam.

  My co-workers all had mock Mafia names: Scott the Scraper, Stan the Stacker, and Roosevelt the Hose. Roosevelt was a gravelly-voiced, gray-haired guy who had been there since Year One. Dishwashing supplemented his true passion, which was playing jazz trumpet when he could score the gigs. Sometimes he had to trade shifts or take off for up to a week at a time to do a brief tour. Rosie was a relic of the bygone days when positions like his were unionized, or at least grandfathered in by rules and regulations that no longer applied to the likes of us newer, highly replaceable dish-droids.

  Since I was the only female on staff, I was promptly christened “Sally Jean, the Dishroom Queen.” My middle name isn’t really Jean, but Roosevelt had to rhyme everything, so I went along with it. He was always singing at the sink, too, and due to this charming habit, along with being the only staffer remotely close to my age, he won my sympathy and trust.

  The other two guys were college-aged. Nothing special, but perfectly fine as counterparts for this grungy gig. The first week, I caught Stan giving me the once-over one time too many. I had to admit, he was kind of cute, but the way he stared at me was pretty off-putting. He wasn’t obnoxious about it, just kind of . . . hungry-looking. So I ignored him but filed this away for future reference.

  For a lame-ass, just-beyond-minimum-wage assignment, this one sure begged for a lot of accoutrements, none of which were provided by the management, natch.

  Everyone else in the dishroom wore cheap tennis shoes. There was rubber matting over the floor by the big sinks, but the rest of that linoleum was slick. At the end of the first week, I saw Scott the Scraper take a tumble—all three hundred fifteen quivering pounds of him. He ripped out his pants and bloodied his shins. He shrugged it off, but I knew that had to hurt—and that I’d be spending part of my weekend shopping for black, rubberized, knee-high boots with anti-skid soles, expense be damned.

  Visions of food flying into my eye didn’t sit well with me, either. So I also made a trip to Dollar Hardware for a pair of those clear plastic goggles, the kind that house painters wear.

  That’s where I spotted the clincher: elbow-length, black rubber dish gloves. Thick ones. Fleece-lined. With reinforced fingertips. ON SALE. Oh, I couldn’t stop myself. I just had to have ’em. My blister-crazed days would soon be put to rest. After all, there was still about twenty dollars on my credit line.

  Next Monday evening, I was back in the trenches, decked out in all my fresh finery. It was a whole new game on now, and so it was Stan the Stacker who first gave me my next Bright Idea—that perhaps I could pick up a bit of extra cash by providing the guys with a bit of a floor show.

  “Drool much, Stan?” I taunted him, when he walked in to spot me pulling racks off the sterilizing machine in my new warzone-ready attire.

  That was when I realized I’d been bopping my hips in time to Scott the Scraper’s boom-box, which was belting out Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.” The perfect peep-show song.

  To make matters even steamier, I had worn a halter top, having discovered that steaming dish racks and heavily covered flesh did not mesh.

  “You do look pretty good in all that black rubber,” he admitted.

  “Then why are you staring at my tits? That’s a cotton top I’m wearing.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” he muttered.

  “No. It’s okay. Frankly, Stan, I’m surprised a guy like you would be interested in an old broad like me.” By now, though, I was stretching and rolling my torso around for the full-on effect. Jiggling, even. Stan gulped and I saw his Adam’s apple jump. I suspected it wasn’t the only lump of his leaping just then.

  “I think you’re, uh, beautiful,” he admitted.

  Something about the way he said it. Be careful, Sal, I told myself, you’re playing with fire here. A very young, out-of-control fire.

  Just then, Roosevelt’s old lady came strutting in. The boom-box oozed into Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” It was the perfect segue out of this awkward moment. I started swaying to the rhythm, taking Stan’s hand and pulling us both into the center of the room. Heck, the shift was winding down anyway, I told myself, so why not a bit of fun.

  I rolled my shoulder back and peeled down a strap. Just a quick peek of bare shoulder. Then off came a glove. I held it out to Stan, and he caught on, grasping the other end and using it to reel me in. He twirled me around a time or two, and just for good measure, and I twirled him back. All in good fun, I thought.

  Afterwards, I was in the ladies’ changing room. Roosevelt’s girlfriend was out in the hall when he emerged from the guys’ side. She didn’t think I could hear her. Probably didn’t even know I was on the other side of the hollow-core door.

  “Who’s that crazy old bitch?” she demanded. “The one with the strip-tease?”

  “Just a friend of a friend,” Roosevelt replied. “Been working here two weeks now.”

  Fuck it, I told myself. I’m done here, and I’m not waiting around. And so I blew through the door. His girlfriend looked as if she’d just been electrocuted.

  “You two have a beautiful evening, hear?” I leaned in and said to her, mock-conspirator-style: “Take him home and make him happy, okay?”

  Roosevelt smiled, sly. He winked at me. “See you tomorrow night, friend.”

  They say that most of the stuff we keep represents not our actual self, but rather, our aspirational self—everything we wish for, everything we hope we will become, the “I” that we want to project into the world for others to see, rather than the small, actual selves that we are.

  I wanted everything having anything to do with Loser Boy out of my house. Well, out of my tiny, cramped apartment. See what I mean? The house was aspirational, existed only in my mind. The actual space we’d shared was claustrophobic to the point of suffocation. I wanted out, but I couldn’t leave. The only way out was to go further in. Can’t run, can’t stay. So in we go.

  The sex had been hot and hard, fast and furious, and frequent enough, right until he moved in. But the moment he moved into my space, standard penetration sex was out. Boy lives on his own; dick gets hard. Boy moves in with me; dick goes soft. That’s all it boiled down to, really. Why couldn’t we have been honest about it then? Did I remind him that much of his Mom? What was it?

  He was on top of me, pushing to get in. Man-on-top, woman-facing-up had always been the least successful position for us. We knew our goose was cooked then. At least, I knew. We would never have a “normal” relationship. If a young stud like Duck Boy, Chicken Boy, what-the-cluck-ever boy, couldn’t keep it up—or rather, up and pointed down—and stick it in, then how the hell was the rest of the relationship supposed to work?

  I should have quit him then. Or, rather, if I’d been honest with myself, I would have quit him at the first possible moment. Or had his stuff shipped somewhere else. Back to his folks? Anywhere but here.

  We tried other things. Anal did nothing for me, but I gave it a game go. It worked great for him, but he was too wide for me back there. Facing up at him; facing down from him; it didn’t matter. Spoons? Yawn, next. Standing at the kitchen counter? Those dishes need to be done. I started to resent him for being a slob. Me + Loser + Anal + Kitchen = Angry. Not good.

  Talk therapy for couples wouldn’t have worked. He was too stupid and I was too smart. Oh, I know it’s all but a cliché to say “older-woman-smart, young-stud-dumb,” but that is truly how it was.

  “You need to not talk while we’re having sex,” I told him one evening. Smiling.

  “Why not?” he challenged me.

  “I don’t know.” Kiss
ing. “Just try not to, okay?”

  Silence.

  “You don’t like it when I talk dirty to you?”

  “No. Not really.”

  More kissing.

  “But you used to.”

  “Things were different then.”

  “What do you mean, ‘different’?”

  I bit my tongue. Took a breath. Counted to five.

  “Well?”

  “You weren’t living here then.” There, I’d said it.

  By then, not only had he stopped, his dick had fallen out. Again.

  “You want me to leave, then?” It was a threat, not a serious question. Manipulation tactics. Fucker. Non-fucker.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  The only thing that works reliably against manipulation tactics, in my world, is raw, unfiltered, brute-strength honesty. At least, that’s what I think. But there I go again, thinking.

  So that left oral sex. His dick in my mouth. More tolerable than anal, but never long enough to get him off. I had no stamina for oral. He still ate me out, but he didn’t like that anymore than I liked anal, I could tell. So instead, I started to get off on the thrill of making him do something he didn’t really enjoy. Sign number two that I should have just quit us then. Why do I ignore my intuition? Maybe I’m just not a relationships gal. Fuck.

  It’s always been a matter of economics, you know? Always. How many jobs have I been fired from because I asked one too many questions, the wrong question, the right question to the wrong person at the wrong time?

  Washing dishes was brainless. Therefore, perfect. Too bad it totally sucked blue-ass donkey balls as a career track.

  These guys knew they had me with the over-exposed Eighties music. The next night, Scott’s boom-box was playing “Legs” by ZZ Top when I walked in. Oh, man, I had to put an end to this, toot sweet. I smirked and managed to keep from cracking up.