Secrets of a Shoe Addict

by Harbison, Beth

  “I didn’t know where you were,” he said, as if that were the same as not having a blanket or, perhaps, oxygen.

  “Well, I’m here.”

  “I think you should come up.”

  “I have more to do here,” she said. “Then I’ll be up. Just go on to bed.”

  “What things are you doing?”

  Would he never let up? “I had some things in the dryer and I wanted to fold them so I wouldn’t have to iron in the morning, that’s all.” No, that wouldn’t take long enough. “And I have to soak some things in bleach.”

  Her guilt was immense. It wasn’t like she was having an affair down in the basement of their house, and there was no way he’d suspect she was doing phone sex, but she still felt a tremor of fear that he’d find out and go ballistic.

  She turned on the washer, dumped in some bleach, and dropped in a pillowcase that was folded on top of the dryer.

  Never in her life had she preferred work of any sort to relaxing in bed. It was probably a bad sign that she preferred it now.

  Chapter

  16

  So who did you get last night?” Loreen asked Abbey. Abbey’s stories were becoming legendary for their unrelenting freakishness.

  Loreen and Abbey were standing with Tiffany outside the school on the sidewalk by the bus lane, waiting for the kids to get out. They had about ten minutes before the bell rang.

  “Well, there was Carl, who wanted to pretend we were on a tropical island being watched by hungry cannibals. And there was also Boo—yes, Boo—who wanted me to dunk his head in the toilet.” Abbey raised an eyebrow. “Not what I’d call a turn-on.”

  Tiffany shook her head. “I just can’t believe it. You get all the freaks.”

  “You mean you get normal guys?”

  Tiffany nodded. “As normal as a guy can be if he’s willing to pay that much per minute for phone sex, yeah.”

  Abbey considered. “Maybe it’s something about the picture I put together for Mimi. Maybe she’s a freak magnet, not me.”

  “You just keep telling yourself that,” Tiffany said with a smile.

  “I will.” Abbey sighed. “Every time I pull on my Wonder Woman costume.”

  “Ix-nay,” Tiffany said suddenly, as Deb Leventer approached. “Change the subject.” She raised her voice. “In retrospect, it really was one of the most memorable trips ever.”

  “Hello, ladies,” Deb said, oozing condescension even in those two small words. “What are we gabbing away about so secretively?”

  “The trip to Vegas,” Loreen said, sounding casual. “It was a great time, wasn’t it?”

  Deb looked doubtful. “Hm. When I last saw some of you there, it looked like you might be heading toward some mighty headaches.” She gave a spiky laugh. “I’m writing to the school band association to suggest that Las Vegas was a terrible choice for the competition. Next year they should choose a more wholesome place.”

  “The kids seemed to have a good time,” Tiffany said. She was pretty good. Her face didn’t betray anything of the trouble the adults had gotten into.

  “They’d have just as good a time in Salt Lake City,” Deb snapped. “Or, my goodness, Washington, D.C. Think of all the history right around the corner from us.”

  “Vegas has a lot of history,” Loreen said, knowing Deb would never agree. “Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bugsy—what was his last name? Warren Beatty played him in that movie where he met Annette Bening.”

  Deb ignored her. “Excuse me, I think I see Hannah Brooks over there.”

  Loreen was glad they’d gotten off so easy. The less time they spent talking to Deb, the less likely it was that she’d figure out something was up with the PTA funds. And, given the fact that Deb was a letter-writer and a complainer, it was best that she never, ever find out what had happened or what Loreen, Tiffany, and Abbey were doing about it.

  Later on, Loreen dropped Jacob off at Robert’s work, because the office was moving and Robert had decided it was a good opportunity to “hire” Jacob to help, thereby instilling some good work ethics in him at an early age.

  It was also good for her son’s ego to feel like his dad needed him to help with the manly work of moving heavy stuff.

  Loreen, on the other hand, went home to do the womanly work of hauling out the trash, cleaning up about fifty gallons of soapy water from where the washer had overflowed (a sock she didn’t even recognize had blocked the laundry tub drain), and heating up a low-fat dinner that tasted more like the waxy cardboard it was wrapped in than the lasagna it was supposed to be.

  She had some work to do on a few of her real estate listings, but the market had gone depressingly flat, so she was finished by six thirty and reminded of how tight money was.

  She considered the time. Robert was taking Jacob out to dinner after work. They wouldn’t be back until about eight. That gave her an hour and a half to log in to Happy Housewives.

  The phone rang almost immediately.

  “This is Mimi,” she said, in her best Marilyn Monroe imitation. Which, actually, wasn’t very good, but it was, at least, consistent. “Who are you?”

  There was a long pause, then, “Call me Dawg.”

  “Dog?”

  “Daw-g.”

  “Dawg,” she tried, then, in a moment of whimsy, “can you howl for me?”

  “Not that kind of dog,” he snapped in a voice less deeply masculine than what he’d initially been going for.

  “What do you want to do, Dawg?” she asked. She’d learned, at least, not to get wound up in stupid details that didn’t matter. “Are you horny?”

  “Obviously. That’s why I called.”

  She wondered how he’d like it if she just called him Jackass. “What do you want to do about that?” she cooed instead.

  “What the hell do you think I want to do?” he asked, apparently content to spend an exorbitant sum of money just to argue. “Turn me on.”

  “How about if I slip my red panties off, Dawg?” she asked. “Do you want to see me?”

  “You know it.” It was a sad thing that the only thing that made this guy less of a jerk was for her to stop thinking and just turn herself into his sex object.

  Then again, that’s what she was getting paid for.

  “Now, I’m taking off my red bra,” she said slowly. “Could you unbuckle it for me?”

  “Rip it off,” he growled. “I’ll rip it off.”

  “Do it!”

  Apparently he did. At least, she assumed that’s what that spitty slashing sound was supposed to be.

  Then there was another sound. One she wasn’t expecting.

  Robert and Jacob coming into the house!

  Why did her family keep showing up when they weren’t supposed to? Admittedly, she should have known about Jacob’s half day, but she was absolutely sure Robert had said they’d be out for at least another hour.

  “Go down on me,” Dawg barked “Do it now! Take my dick in your mouth.”

  Oh, good Lord, whether they were supposed to be here or not, Jacob and Robert were plodding up the stairs. She heard Robert tell Jacob to go get something from his room; then Robert knocked on the door.

  “Take my dick,” her caller repeated.

  “You’ve got it,” she said, trying to soften her voice but still sound businesslike so Robert wouldn’t hear and figure out what was happening. “Mmmm.”

  Robert knocked again, louder. “Loreen?”

  This was a mess. It wasn’t possible for her to get far enough from the door that her caller couldn’t hear, and there was no way she wanted anyone to know her real name.

  So, with no alternative, she opened the door to Robert and held up her index finger. Business, she reminded herself. Sound professional. “That’s one hell of an asset you’ve got.” She cupped her hand over the phone and whispered to Robert, “Business call. I’ll be right down.”

  “Suck my meat,” Dawg said.

  She turned on the light and said to him, a little too loud, “It’s pr
ime. Prime plus.” God, she could not let Robert find out what she was doing. If he did, he might think she was an unfit mother, and she might find herself in a custody battle for Jacob and—

  “Yeah,” Dawg groaned. “And don’t be afraid to use your teeth. I can take it.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Robert looked at her a little oddly, then nodded and turned to retreat down the hall.

  “Next I want you to suck my toes,” Dawg said.

  “What?” It was so unexpected, she couldn’t help her startled reaction.

  Robert stopped and turned back.

  “Oh, sure,” she said into the phone, waving Robert off with a smile, like she’d just seen a spider or something. “There’s definitely interest,” she improvised, knowing Robert could still hear her if he was listening. “Getting lower. And lower.” She watched as Robert rounded the corner and went down the stairs; then she closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed, heart pounding. “I just can’t get enough of you,” she said into the phone, but she knew it didn’t sound like she meant it at all.

  Fortunately for her, she’d been convincing enough up to that point that Dawg was past caring. Within five minutes, the call was over and Loreen was able to straighten herself up enough to go down and face Jacob and Robert.

  “I got twenty dollars, Mom!” Jacob held up a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Dad’s secretary said I was the strongest guy there!”

  “I bet you were.” Loreen went over and ruffled his hair with her freshly washed hand. “Sorry about that,” she said to Robert. “One of my clients needs me to hold his hand through all the financial stuff. I’ve explained it over and over, but he just doesn’t seem to get it.”

  “I’m sure he got it this time,” Robert said, quirking a smile that made her wonder how much he’d heard.

  “Jacob,” she said, keeping her eyes fastened on Robert’s. “Go get your jammies on, okay?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes!” Robert and Loreen said simultaneously.

  “It’s a school night,” Loreen added.

  Jacob rolled his eyes dramatically, and said, “Okay.” His eyes lit up. “Do I get ice cream?”

  “You already had dessert at the restaurant,” Robert said. “Now go. Get your jams on.”

  Jacob slumped out of the room dramatically. When he was gone, Loreen breathed a sigh of relief.

  For a moment.

  “So,” Robert said, leaning back against the sofa and steepling his hands in front of him. “What were you up to when we got home?”

  “I told you.” She swallowed and licked her dry lips. “I was on a business call.”

  “Then I’m afraid to ask what your business is.”

  She felt her face go red hot. “What do you mean?”

  Robert lowered his chin and looked at her in that way she recognized to mean cut the bullshit.

  “How much did you hear?” she asked, deflating. She already knew the answer: enough to humiliate her.

  “It’s none of my business,” Robert said. “I shouldn’t have listened—”

  “You listened?”

  This time Robert blushed. “I can’t lie to you, Lor. I couldn’t turn away. At first I thought it wasn’t you,” he went on. “We never . . . you know, we never talked that way to each other.”

  Maybe they should have. “I know,” she agreed.

  “So . . .”

  She could tell he wanted to ask if she had another man. And she wanted to reassure him on that point. Not that she owed him fidelity or anything anymore, but it would be a little hard for her if she knew he was sleeping with someone—and maybe he was, who knew?—so her instinct was to tell him that wasn’t the case.

  But was it better for her to say she was a phone sex operator?

  What would be harder for him to take?

  She looked into his pale blue eyes. They always had that puppydog quality, just as Jacob’s did, so that shouldn’t have suckered her, but there was a deeper hurt in them that made her decide she had to tell him the truth.

  “It’s not what you think,” she started.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not?”

  She winced. “Oh, Robert, this is not easy to explain.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

  “I know. But you want one, don’t you?”

  He gave a laugh. “More than you can imagine.”

  She swallowed. “Okay. So what happened is this. You know how we took the kids to Las Vegas for the band thing, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, some of us did a little gambling. A little too much gambling. Actually . . . it was a lot too much gambling. And I was the most foolish of everyone.”

  Robert looked skeptical. “You gambled?”

  “You have no idea.” She shuddered, remembering the night. “I was like a different person.”

  “I can’t even imagine you doing that.” He didn’t say it in a judgmental way. He just sounded . . . interested. “Looks like I’m learning a lot of things about you I never knew.”

  She gave a dry laugh. “Just be glad you got the good stuff and I saved the bad stuff for after our separation.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Denigrate yourself. There’s nothing wrong with gambling. There’s nothing wrong with losing at it either,” he added before she could say it.

  She leveled her eyes on him. “Even when you do it with the PTA’s money?” she challenged.

  He cocked his head. “You lost me.”

  “I was drinking,” she began, then held up a hand. “Yes, I was drunk. I’m telling you, it was a strange weekend. Anyway, I got confused in the casino and accidentally got cash advances on the PTA credit card instead of my own.”

  Robert gave a shout of laughter. “Not good.”

  “Well, they are from the same bank.” She hesitated. There was no point in trying to defend herself. “No, it was stupid. Anyway, I racked up thousands of dollars’ worth of debt on the PTA card. Because I’m the treasurer, you know.” She smiled. The irony . . . it was all too ridiculous.

  “I don’t want to butt in, but where are you going to get the money to pay it off? The real estate market isn’t exactly hot.” He laughed. “Despite your call earlier.”

  She clicked her tongue against her teeth and drew a breath in. “Funny you should mention that, because that’s what I’m doing to supplement my income.”

  “Getting a boyfriend?” He looked confused.

  “No.” She shook her head and held his gaze. “Phone sex.” Then, to be absolutely clear, “I’m a phone sex operator. Lonely men call 900-HOUSEWIVES and I tell them whatever they want to hear for however many minutes they can afford. Or, rather, Mimi does.”

  “Mimi?”

  She nodded. “My stage name.”

  The shock on his face was complete. “You’re . . . Are you pulling my leg?”

  “No. But I could. In fact, for two ninety-five a minute, I could pull just about anything you want me to.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I were.”

  “You’re having phone sex with strangers for money.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  He stood up and paced the floor in front of her. “When we were married, you didn’t have the time or energy to hold my hand. Now you’re jacking off strangers over the phone?”

  “I don’t want to,” she said, looking down. “It’s just the only way to pay back the debt quickly.”

  “So if I’d paid you—”

  “Don’t go there,” she interrupted. “That is not what this is like.”

  “Do you know how long I waited for you to be with me again? After Jacob was born, I understood it would take a while, but not years. If you had come to me at any point, if you had tried to put the intimacy back into our relationship, we might not be where we are. But all you did was rebuff me, and now . . .” He threw his hands in t
he air. “I can’t believe this.”

  Loreen saw, for the first time since they’d separated, that Robert wasn’t being critical of her time with Jacob, he was missing her time with him.

  How had she been so blind to that?

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to . . . be with you.” Funny how hard it was to find the words when she wasn’t on the phone. “Back then, especially, with Jacob so young, it was just hard to find the right time.”

  He looked doubtful.

  And maybe, in a way, he was right.

  “I didn’t feel good about myself,” she said plainly.

  Robert looked startled. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “After having Jacob.” She gestured toward her hip and stomach area. “I was never able to get my old shape back. I didn’t—I don’t—feel like myself.”

  “But you are yourself. Did you think I was judging you?”

  She thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I was judging myself so much that I couldn’t imagine you weren’t. Especially since you were seeing all the changes so”—she shrugged—“intimately.” Tears reached her eyes. She was embarrassed to say all of this out loud, and embarrassed that it was true. Her brief time with Rod, aside from the part where she got the bill, had felt “safe” because she knew she’d never see him again. She wouldn’t have to face him in the morning and wonder if he was thinking about how doughy her butt was compared to someone else’s.

  Robert looked uncomprehending. “But I loved you. And any changes in your body, not that they were nearly as significant as you think, were because you carried and delivered our son. Your body is beautiful and strong and perfect just like it is.”

  The tears ran down her cheeks, and she sniffled unseductively. “That’s nice of you to say—”

  He grasped her arms. “Loreen, I mean it.”

  She swallowed. “Even if you do, that doesn’t make me less self-conscious.” It would have been easy to say, Then why didn’t you just go on a diet? But Robert knew better.

  “So you do it over the phone and you look however you want to.”

  She thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Not that it’s been any great turn-on.” The conversation was making her uncomfortable. “It’s late, Robert. I need to get to bed.”