Michael paused only briefly before continuing his efforts.
He plunged the vibe’s head into her pussy and searched until he found that special spot. She strained against her bindings and a low moan escaped her. Her belly rippled, her thighs shuddered.
Twice more she came.
Too sensitive to continue, Kate gave him the sign. While she rested, legs splayed, pussy dripping, several of the men deposited their loads on her breasts. A woman, wearing a mask over her face, pressed her crotch to Kate’s knee and humped like a dog. In the end, she bucked and wailed, only be led away by another masked woman.
When the strangers were gone, Michael loosened her bindings. He washed her off with a soft, warm cloth, then took her to bed where he held her close all night.
Over the next few months, they exchanged e-mails. He called twice. They talked about getting together for the holidays, but it never came to pass.
Kate’s life settled into its old routine.
Then, one Friday evening in January, as a light snow fell on the city and the new President prepared to be sworn in, Kate turned on all the lights in her apartment, opened the curtains, and stood before the window. As usual, most of the apartments across the way were dark or closed up tight.
She’d gone without panties during the day, of course, but had worn heavy woolen slacks to protect her bare pussy from the cold. On a whim, she unbuckled the leather belt around her waist, undid the clasp, and wriggled free.
She turned so that her rump pressed against the window. She bent over, grabbed her buttocks, and opened herself wide.
“There,” she said. “There.”
Then, she turned again, and reached to close the curtains. She paused when she saw a man in jeans and T-shirt peering at her from across the courtyard. He hadn’t been there when she’d looked earlier, or she hadn’t noticed him. He raised a hand and waved.
Naked from the waist down, her first instinct was to draw the curtains tight and turn off the lights.
Instead, she held her ground, then raised her hand and returned the watcher’s wave.
Snow continued to fall as they began their dance.
THIRD SHIFT
Tammi took the little balding man in the gray suit for just another stranger on the Mother Road. No doubt he was on his way to some place he’d just as soon not go, maybe a funeral or the forced sale of the family farm. She got her share of guys like that on the third shift at The Dixie Highway Truck Stop. She also got her share of horny truckers, touchy-feely salesmen, and drunk college boys on road trips.
Route 66 had a way of attracting losers and loners.
The little man ordered his coffee black, eggs sunny-side up, and toast plain. His fingernails were perfectly manicured, his remaining hair was impeccably trimmed, and he smelled clean and fresh as a sheet hung outside to dry on Tammi’s clothesline.
“Thank you,” he said. “Tammi.”
He’d read her name tag—the one attached to where her left breast rested beneath the waitress uniform.
“You’re welcome. Can I get you anything else?”
He spread a paper napkin across his lap and glanced around the diner. “You could sit and talk. I’ve been traveling all day and would appreciate your company.”
Tammi gave him her sweetest smile. “I’m really not supposed to.”
He nodded at the other waitress, Shana, across the way. She stood with a coffee pot in one hand, the other on her hip, flirting with a couple of truckers. “She going to tell on you?”
“Well . . .”
“I just want to talk.”
“I really shouldn’t.”
The little man reached inside his suit coat pocket and produced a wallet. When he opened it, Tammi could see a roll of cash an inch wide. He peeled off a $100 bill and laid it on the table. He looked up at her with piercing gray eyes.
“I’m guessing you’re pushing thirty-five, divorced, and just getting by. You’re blonde and pretty and curvy beneath that dress, but you’re not seeing anyone and know that time is running out. Especially, if you stay around here.”
He’d pretty much read it right. She’d been on her own since her divorce from Dan six months earlier. Sometimes, after a day spent alone in her mobile home, The Dixie Highway didn’t seem like such a bad place to work, after all.
“Okay, so what do you want?”
“A little conversation.”
“Mister . . .”
“Avery, actually.”
He peeled off another crisp hundred-dollar bill. Holy shit! It was more than she cleared in a week. She shot another look across the diner. Shana was still flirting with the truckers, but other than that, they’d hit a dead spot in the night.
“Well, all right,” Tammi said. “But you don’t have to give me money.”
When she sat down, he pushed the bills across the table. “It’s nothing really. Please, take it. I want you to.”
“Mister, I don’t know anything about you.”
“Oh, I think you know me. I’m on the road and alone like everyone else who comes in here.”
“So, what did you want to talk about?”
The man cut his eggs in precise halves, then dipped the corner of his toast into the yolk that spilled across the plate. “Your hopes and dreams.”
“My hopes and dreams?”
“That’s right.”
The truth was, it had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to have hopes and dreams, but she didn’t want to tell this stranger that. He already seemed to know too much about her.
“Well,” she said, “when I was in high school, I used to dream about moving to Chicago or New York. I wanted to be a model.”
Avery continued to work on his toast and eggs, dabbing his mouth with his napkin after each bite. “Really, a model? What happened?”
Tammi squirmed on the red Naugahyde bench. The little man’s questions made her uncomfortable. She felt like an onion and each of his questions removed another layer of skin.
“I went to community college instead,” she said. “I was going to learn computers, but . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Avery pushed his plate aside and sipped his coffee. He stared at her with those eyes. “Life’s like that. But that was then, this is now. What are your hopes and dreams today?”
Tammi couldn’t hold the man’s gaze. In less than five minutes, he’d bought her attention with two hundred dollars, then dissected her like a frog on a table.
“I don’t know. I’d go back to school to be a graphic artist, if I could.”
“Graphic artist. Do you like to draw? Like to paint?”
“It’s all done on computers these days.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“So, what about you?” she asked. “You must have family.”
“I’m just a man on the road.”
“What about your hopes and dreams?”
He gave her a thin smile. What he said next caused her to sit back in her seat. “Would you be interested in modeling for me, Tammi?”
“Modeling?”
“Not tonight, but another time. Perhaps at the motel next door.”
“The Sunrise?” She had a history with the Sunrise Motel. Dan had taken her there the night they graduated high school.
“Or some other place of your choosing.”
“This is making me uncomfortable.”
Avery’s eyes never left hers. “I can change your life, Tammi.”
She stood to leave. “Who says I need a change?”
He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. “You should take the money.”
The two $100 bills lay on the table. “I told you I didn’t want your money.”
“Take it, Tammi. For your trouble. No strings attached.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Please. Take it.”
Two rough-looking men pushed through the door. Shana had returned to the kitchen to refill her coffee pot.
“Y’all just sit an
ywhere,” Tammi called to the men.
“Take the money, Tammi,” Avery said.
She swallowed hard, scooped up the bills, and thrust them into her bra. She turned on her heel and strode away. She handed her new customers menus and poured them coffee.
When she looked back to where Avery had been sitting, he was gone. Cash paid his bill, and he left a twenty-percent tip.
Tammi sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. She removed the two crisp $100 bills from her bra. She sniffed them and held them to the light.
She didn’t know what to make of it. People shouldn’t go around paying other people good money to share their hopes and dreams. It wasn’t right.
Then it occurred to her that she didn’t have to keep the money. If Avery came back, she could return it. Or, she could give the money to Deac Williams, the Baptist preacher who always needed money for those starving kids in Africa.
Tammi stood, ground out her cigarette, and adjusted her skirt. She went out to finish her shift. By six, the sun was up on the prairie. The early-risers filled the diner with their raucous talk and laughter. By eight, the first rush was over and she headed home.
She could have returned the money or given it away, but instead, Tammi drove to the outlet mall and spent part of it on a new pantsuit from Bebe. With the rest, she bought some sexy new underwear from Victoria's Secret. It was her day off, so she had lunch at the Food Court, watched a movie in the afternoon, then ate dinner at the new Chinese restaurant they put up where the train station used to stand.
When she returned home, she stripped and showered. She made herself up, fixed her hair, and dressed in the new underwear and the tight-fitting pantsuit she’d bought earlier in the day. She liked the way the black thong snuggled between her butt cheeks. She liked the way the black bra lifted and separated her breasts.
She stood in front of the mirror. “Eat your fucking heart out, Dan,” she said.
Since the divorce, she’d spent nearly every evening she wasn’t working at home in front of the TV. But tonight, she looked too good to stay in. Tonight she was thinking she should call her friend Kate. That girl was always going on about the lounge at the bypass Holiday Inn. A lot of cute guys hung out there, Kate said. Some of them were even nice.
Tammi made several starts at calling Kate, but caught herself each time. Even in her new pantsuit, she worried about the extra pounds she’d put on and that new jiggle in her thighs. No one needed to see that. And those cute guys Kate talked about? Well, they were really traveling salesmen and losers on the make. If one of them picked her up, she’d be the chick he bragged about to all his buddies. Yeah, you shoulda heard her moan like she hadn’t been fucked in months.
Okay, so she hadn’t, but the whole world didn’t need to know.
Worse yet, Kate had seen Dan there once, chatting it up with Pam Metzger, that floozy who tended bar at the Bowl-A-Matic. What would she say if she ran into Dan and one of his hotties? Hi, Dan, I’m dating a great fella, but he didn’t want to come out slumming with me tonight.
The lounge at the Holiday Inn—who was she kidding?
Still dressed in her new clothes, Tammi went into the kitchen. She cut herself a piece of chocolate cake, loaded it up with Vanilla Bean ice cream, and carried it onto the front stoop of her mobile home.
It was high summer, hot and humid in Southern Illinois, even with the sun behind a bank of clouds. Air conditioners hummed loud enough to block the whine of the cicadas. Across the road, shoulder-high corn marched in rows as far as the eye could see. Now and then, a pickup truck chugged by.
Tammi ate until the cake and ice cream were gone. Then she licked the bowl.
Avery returned exactly one week to the day after he first showed his face at the diner. Tammi poured his coffee and took his order. Same gray suit, same pallid tie. Same eggs and toast.
This time, she didn’t hesitate to sit when he asked.
He licked his lips with that same gray tongue.
“Tammi,” he said.
“Avery.”
She expected him to ask about the money he’d given her—if she’d spent it and how? But he didn’t.
Instead, he reached inside his breast pocket and retrieved his wallet. He showed her another $100 bill, this one as crisp and clean as the first two he’d given her. “Have you thought anymore about what we talked about?”
“I thought about it.”
“And?”
“Well, when you say modeling, what exactly . . .”
He cut her off. “I’d like your panties.”
“My panties?”
“The ones you’re wearing right now. I’d like you to go into the bathroom, take them off, then bring them to me. I’ll pay you $100 for them.”
“Last time . . .”
A dull light flickered in his eyes. “All right, $200, just like last time.”
“But I thought you wanted me to model.”
“Your panties,” he said, his mouth full of eggs and toast.
Tammi told Shana she needed a bathroom break. She locked the door behind her, stepped into a stall, and lifted her skirt. She was wearing the black thong she’d bought with Avery’s money. She stepped out of it and brought it to her face, inhaling the scent. She felt loose, almost giddy, when she walked back into the fluorescent light of the truck stop, naked underneath her waitress uniform.
She slid the rolled-up ball of fabric across the table and snatched up the little man’s money.
He told her to lose ten pounds, do fifty sit-ups every day, and then they’d talk about modeling.
She bought some fancy running shoes and a set of twenty-pound dumbbells. She walked two miles every morning and every afternoon before going to work. She did belly crunches and lifted weights until her body glistened with sweat.
When Avery showed the next week, he complimented her. “You look good, Tammi,” he said. “You’ve been working out.”
“I gave up sweets too.”
“Sweets aren’t good for you.”
Tammi fidgeted with a paper napkin. She could feel the little man’s eyes on her. “No, they’re not.”
“I thought about you this week,” he said. “I took your thong to bed with me each night.”
Tammi blushed. She’d wondered about that thong, where it had been, what he’d done with it. “That’s nice.”
He sipped his black coffee, removed two $100 bills from his wallet, folded them, then folded them again. “I like your scent,” he said, “the scent of your pussy.”
The word caused Tammi to flinch. Shana was three tables away, serving Big Skillet Breakfasts to a sad-looking couple dressed in worn jeans and dirty T-shirts. The word seemed to fill the entire truck stop, yet Tammi couldn’t stop herself from repeating it. “You like my pussy, Avery?”
“The scent of it. It excites you to say that word, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe, a little. I guess.”
When she glanced up, he was smiling. “I’m willing to bet your pussy is wet as we sit here.”
She cleared her throat and placed her hands flat on the table. “You say the wildest things.”
“Am I right?”
“Maybe, a little. I’m not used to talking about my pussy in public with strangers.”
He slid the folded-up bills across the table. “Touch yourself under your dress. I want to smell you. I want to taste you.”
Tammi sat back. She felt hot and loose like she felt when she’d taken off her thong for him. “Here? Right now?”
He nodded and licked his lips. “No one’s looking.”
He was right about that. Shana had disappeared into the kitchen. The sad couple had their faces in their Big Skillet Breakfasts. Tammi bit her lower lip and slid a hand under her skirt. She pushed her panties aside and dipped two fingers inside her slick pussy. When she showed them to him, they glistened in the overhead light.
Avery brought her hand to his mouth. His tongue licked her fingers clean. His eyes burned a little brighter.
&nb
sp; He placed the bills in her palm and folded her fingers around them. “I think you’re almost ready,” he said. “Write your phone number down for me.”
He gave her a card with his name on it—AVERY SMITH—a white card with black print; it contained no further information. She wrote her number on the back as he’d instructed and returned it to him.
Then he told her to lose five more pounds.
After he left, she went into the bathroom and washed her hands. It didn’t matter how many times she washed, she couldn’t get the scent of her sex off. Then she realized the scent was emanating from between her legs. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so worked up. Shit, she was on fire
Shana was waiting for her on the other side of the door. She was older than Tammi, divorced with two teenagers. She had a face like a horse and thick ankles.
“What the fuck are you up to?” Shana asked.
The truck stop had emptied out except for the two of them. “What do you mean?”
“That little man.”
Tammi’s mouth was dry. “Just talking. He’s lonely.”
“Every man comes in here’s lonely. You take money from him?”
“No. Of course not. Why would he give me money?”
“You tell me, honey. I saw him hand you money.”
Tammi felt the blood drain from her face. “He’s harmless. Just a lonely little man.”
Shana cocked an eyebrow. “There’s a lot of weirdos in this world. Besides, if something funny’s going on, it’ll cost you your job.”
“What do you mean, funny?”
“I think you know. There’s only one reason that man would give you money.”
Tammi frowned. “Well, who’s going to say anything?”
“I’ve worked for Sam a long time. He won’t put up with shit like that at The Dixie Highway.”
“Well, nothing funny’s going on.”
Tight Women in Hard Places Page 6