Never Trust a Stranger

by Mary Monroe

  “Uh-huh. He’s back in town again already. He called and left a message while I was with you this afternoon. Anyway, he’s sitting in his hotel room with a hard-on that’s got my name on it.”

  “Well, excuse me! I’ll let you go so you can go take care of that hard-on. I want a full report tomorrow. Where are you going to tell Reed you’re going?”

  “Honey, I’ve got that covered. He wouldn’t know if the house was on fire.”

  “Oh. You drugged him again with those pills you got from DrFeelGood?”

  “Yup!” Joan chuckled. “Hey, if you ever want to use them on Bertha, just let me know.”

  “I just might do that. She’s as big a problem as she ever was.”

  “You think you’ve got problems? Reed keeps badgering me to go with him to that sleazy adult toy store on Brandon Street so we can pick up a few items to put the spark back into our sex life.”

  “What spark? From what you’ve told me about Reed, there was never a spark to begin with. If anything, I thought you were trying to wean him. Anyway, you’re getting enough sex from men in the club for three women. Putting a spark in your dead-dick husband is the last thing you need to do if you ever hope to make him lose interest in you enough for you to get that divorce.”

  “I know, I know. But until I get to that point, I’ll do just enough to keep him off my back.” Joan exhaled and sucked on her teeth. “I’d love to keep talking, but I need to get to that hotel lickety-split because my pussy is on fire.”

  There were times when my girl was so explicit, it made me flinch. But that was the kind of woman she was. I wished that I could be more like her. “Joan.” I hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Have fun.”

  “I always do!”

  Chapter 9

  Joan

  IT WAS MONDAY MORNING, JUST BEFORE DAWN. EZRA AND I WERE both awake, lying in silence after a night of incredible sex. He rolled over in bed and roughly pulled me into his arms again. We made love for the fourth time since I’d sashayed into his hotel suite a few minutes past eight last night.

  It had been a long night filled with the kind of rip-roaring good sex I lived for. I couldn’t remember the last time I climaxed five times with the same man during the same session.

  The posh hotel suite was cluttered with empty champagne bottles, leftovers from our midnight seafood snack, and used condoms. The bed was in such disarray, it looked like somebody had been murdered in it. The pillow that Ezra had used to elevate my butt was now lodged between my legs.

  Around seven a.m. I wiggled out of his viselike embrace and scrambled out of bed. With a disgruntled snort he threw back the covers, kicked one of the king-size pillows to the floor, sat bolt upright, and folded his arms. There was a pout on his face. On a man his age, which was fifty, it looked downright ridiculous. He was spoiled, so naturally he pouted when he didn’t get his way. I had to remind myself that Ezra was the only son of a pampered Jewish socialite from Boston and a Dutch billionaire from Amsterdam. People had catered to him all his life.

  “You know I don’t like to eat alone,” Ezra reminded. “Will you stay long enough to have breakfast with me?”

  “You know I would if I could. If Reed wakes up before I get back home, I’ll never hear the end of it.” I gave Ezra the most endearing look I could manage. “Next time we’ll plan better.”

  He sighed. Then he took his time looking me up and down as I stood naked by the side of the bed. “I didn’t want to mention it, but you’re getting a little fluffy around the middle, my dear.” I didn’t know if the remark was a serious criticism or just a light-hearted, random observation. No matter which one it was, it made my chest tighten and my head swim. “You know I could tighten up or smooth out any part you’d like. Free of charge, of course.”

  I sucked in my gut and gave Ezra a pensive look. “Do you really mean that?” I asked, cursing myself for gobbling up chitlins and peach cobbler at Lola’s house three times last month. “Can I get breast implants, too, pretty please?”

  “Absolutely! And any size you want. Making people look good is what I do best, and I sure as hell get paid well enough to do it. A woman’s appearance is very important to me.”

  He sure was particular about how other people looked. It was a good thing he was so skilled in bed, or no woman in her right mind would want to sleep with him. The main reason I’d accepted his first date request was because every single review of his performance on the club’s blog had rated him five out of five stars.

  Despite his plain looks, chronic bad breath, and hairy body, I adored Ezra. He did something no other man had ever done for me. He made me have orgasms so intense, they vibrated all the way down to my toes! And, because of his work and all the famous people he socialized with and performed surgery on, he was an interesting person to talk to. If I agreed to let him remodel my body, the surgeries and recovery process could really put a strain on my time, which I was already pushing to the limit.

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  “Well, you’d better not take too much time to ‘think about it.’ I have back-to-back appointments on my calendar for the next few months. It’ll be hard to squeeze you in somewhere, so the sooner you let me know, the easier it’ll be for me to make the arrangements. I’ll have you flown by private jet from here to Palm Beach, and I can book you into the hotel of your choice, where you can take as much time as necessary to recover. Then we’ll mosey on over to Worth Avenue, which is a stone’s throw from my office, and I’ll purchase you a whole new wardrobe to go with your new body. And, whenever you can get away for two or three weeks, we’ll spend some time lounging at my beach house in Costa Rica.”

  “Damn,” I mouthed. “You’d be willing to do all that for me for free?”

  Ezra nodded and gave me a smug look. “That and more.”

  “Damn,” I said again.

  * * *

  When I got back to South Bay City, I parked the shiny, blue Buick that Reed had purchased for my birthday last year on the street in front of our building. I glanced at my watch as I entered the lobby. I realized I’d been gone for almost ten hours.

  I entered the condo as quietly as possible. On any other Monday morning Reed would have been up long before now. I was happy to see that the living-room drapes were still closed, and the place was as silent as a tomb. I shuffled closer to the hallway and then started moving toward the master bedroom. I silently prayed that the knockout drops I’d put in Reed’s wine last night had not worn off. But I already had a list of believable lies in the front of my mind in case I had to use one.

  I stopped in front of the door, held my breath, and listened. I could hear him inside snoring like an ox. I eased open the door, tiptoed across the floor to my closet, and grabbed one of my bathrobes.

  I almost jumped out of my skin when Reed mumbled some gibberish and gritted his teeth. I stood stock-still and held my breath until his snoring resumed a few seconds later. Then I went into the bathroom across the hall. I closed and locked the door and changed from the slacks and blouse I’d worn to the hotel into my bathrobe. Next I removed an unopened pack of condoms from my purse. I slid them into the same large baggie under the sink where I kept my tampons, douche powder, butt spray, and all the other feminine products that made Reed flinch so much that I never had to worry about him snooping around in this area.

  I emptied my bladder, flushed the toilet, and took a deep breath as I headed back to the bedroom. When I opened the door, I cleared my throat and let out a loud cough. Reed spewed some more gibberish and flopped around a little, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  I looked at him for about a minute before I strolled over to the bed and sat down on his side. I ran my fingers along the side of his face and pinched his nose. His eyes flew open, and he sat bolt upright, flailing his arms as if they were wings on a dying chicken.

  “What—what the hell . . .” he began. With his eyes looking as big as saucers, he looked at the clock on the nightstand
and gasped. “Baby, I must have really been drunk last night, huh? I don’t remember a damn thing after we finished that fried rice and that bottle of wine.”

  “You were really tired last night, honey. You drank most of the wine. From now on, you get only one glass when we eat Chinese food,” I scolded, offering him a warm smile to sweeten the pot. “You could barely walk on your own. I had to practically drag you to the bedroom, and don’t get on my case about putting you to bed in your clothes. After hauling your drunken ass from the living room, I was too worn out to undress you too.”

  Reed gave me an apologetic look and shook his head. “You poor thing. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Make what up to me?”

  “The way you were teasing me by sucking on those egg rolls last night and giving me one lusty look after another, I could tell you wanted to do some sucking on me. And you know I always want to do the same thing to you,” he said hoarsely, rubbing the side of my arm. “Don’t worry; we have a couple of hours before Mother brings Junior home, so we can get as buck wild and loud as we want to!” Reed sat up straighter, squeezed my breast, and gave me a long, sloppy kiss. I moaned. “I hear you, baby,” he yelled. He leaned his head back and looked directly into my eyes. “You’re going to be moaning a whole lot louder than that when I get my hands on you! I’m going to take a shower, have a cup of coffee, and then I’m going to make love to you like I’ve never made love to you before!”

  “Ooh . . . wee. I . . . I c-can’t w-wait,” I stammered, slowly and dryly. He was too dense to notice my indifference.

  “I am a lucky man to have such a beautiful, sexy wife all to myself.” Reed pulled me into his arms and gave me another sloppy kiss. His morning breath was as foul as mule shit. What he said next made me want to run out of the room screaming. “Joan, marrying you was the best thing I ever did in my life, and I’m sure I’ll still think that forty, fifty years from now. You’re my most prized possession, and I will never let you go. . . .”

  Chapter 10

  Calvin

  IT HAD BEEN TWO WEEKS SINCE I’D MET LOLA POOLE IN PERSON. I was glad Valentine’s Day was going to end in a few hours. Like Groundhog Day, it was one of the stupidest “holidays” on the calendar. As far as I was concerned, lovers were supposed to show affection to each other every day of the year. Lola had casually mentioned it during our coffee break, which I had taken as a hint that she wanted to spend it with me. Well, I didn’t have time for anything that foolish. Especially with a woman I was planning to kill. I had told her some bullshit story about me having to work today. She had given me her cell phone number, so I’d felt obligated to give mine to her as well. Since that day, I’d repeatedly replayed some of the things she’d babbled about. Her mama had been a schoolteacher, her daddy had driven a city bus, blah, blah, blah. What made her think I would care about all that mundane shit, I wondered. I made appropriate comments to everything she said, and I shared a lot of information about myself. But only enough to impress her, which was not hard to do. This woman was an all-day sucker. Now that I’d seen her in the flesh, I couldn’t stop thinking about her pending murder. And I still occasionally thought about the moans that I thought I’d heard coming from my garage. I hadn’t heard them since last week. But from that night on, each time I got into my bed, I slept on the side next to the nightstand that contained my Bible and my gun.

  I slept like a baby almost every night; even when I was on an interstate haul and had to check into a cheap truck stop motel. When a place looked too seedy and a bunch of lowlifes and hookers were on the premises, I stretched out in the cab of my rig. As well as I slept, I occasionally had dreams that I couldn’t remember the next day. Since Lola was on my mind so much now, I was pretty sure that she’d been in some of those dreams. I was certain that if there was such a thing as a “dream girl,” she was mine. It didn’t matter to me that she was an immature ditz. During our coffee shop conversation, she’d told me how much she enjoyed watching some of the same TV shows I watched, like 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, and most of the documentaries featured on the National Geographic channel. In the next breath she told me her favorite programs were The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Golden Girls reruns, and Family Feud! I could not imagine what a woman Lola’s age got out of watching straight-up, moronic crap like that. A pretty woman with scrambled eggs for brains could cause a man a lot of headaches and heartaches. One as idiotic as Lola Poole would be better off dead no matter what!

  Like a lot of scatterbrained women, Lola had power she probably didn’t even know she had. She was so sexy, I got an instant erection when I was within two feet of her, just like I had when I met Glinda for the first time, almost nine years ago. It was amazing how two women could have the same impact on me. Well, for one thing, they were carbon copies of each other. Even more so than I’d originally thought. Not only was Lola Glinda’s physical clone, she had some of the same mannerisms. I’d almost fainted when Lola laughed with a cute snort the same way Glinda used to. And Lola drank her coffee through a straw—one of Glinda’s habits that used to amuse me. Lola’s life was now in my hands. And I was ecstatic. I wanted to savor every moment of the euphoria that was so potent I could almost taste it. Otherwise, I would have killed her already. The ball was in my court. I would determine when and how she died—unless some other maniac did her in first.

  The day I met Lola, the effect she already had on me doubled. So did my homicidal urges. By the time I got home after our meeting, I was seething with anger. I immediately turned on my computer and went straight to the club’s website. I spent fifteen minutes reading the reviews about her and staring at the picture that she’d included with her profile. That was basically all I did for the next two weeks. Even when I was on the road. I always took my laptop with me, and I stopped for rest or food only at places that had free Wi-Fi, because I couldn’t go a day without looking at that bitch’s face, reading the reviews about her nasty ass, and fantasizing about her dead body. Each time I thought of something new to add to the plan, like mutilating her face with a box cutter and removing her toes and teeth with a pair of pliers. I even thought about dismembering her. The thought of putting her severed head in a bucket and marinating it with my own urine amused me. No matter what I ultimately decided to do to that goddamn woman, it was going to be a pleasure.

  Because of Lola, I temporarily lost interest in all other females. For the next two weeks, I avoided them all. When I went to my local grocery store a few days ago, I waited around until a male cashier was available before I paid for my purchases. I refused to cash a check at my bank the day after that because all of the tellers were female. I didn’t even want to see or talk to Sylvia Bruce, my longtime lady friend.

  Like a lot of women, Sylvia saw everything through rose-colored glasses when it came to romance. She was no raving beauty, but she was attractive enough with her medium-length brown hair, Cabbage Patch–looking face, and petite body. She was about as gullible, docile, and naïve as they came. As far as she was concerned, I was the “perfect” lover. And it was no wonder. I gave Sylvia enough attention to keep her happy, I was generous to her, and I usually treated her with a decent amount of respect. However, I couldn’t be too good to her, because I didn’t want her to think that I had even a drop of wimp blood in my body. No matter how weak or strong a woman was, she wanted a strong man.

  I even told Sylvia on a regular basis that I loved her. I had her in the bottom of my hip pocket and she didn’t even know it. All she was to me was a front—somebody who made me look good to the rest of the world. I planned to keep her around for as long as I needed her. Hell, there was even a chance that I’d marry her and start a family. I knew that with a wife like Sylvia, I could continue doing everything I wanted. And the main thing was, I had to spend time with other women. What straight man didn’t? It was unrealistic for anybody in their right mind to believe that a dude could be faithful to one woman. That didn’t even happen in the Bible.

  After my two-week “hia
tus,” I decided it was time to check in with Sylvia.

  “Calvin? Where have you been for the past couple of weeks? I haven’t heard from you since the day before the Super Bowl! I’ve been worried sick about you,” she told me this evening when I responded to the numerous voice mail messages she’d left on my landline and my cell phone. Even though I couldn’t see her, I knew there was a “woe-is-me” look on her face from the weary tone of her voice. “I was so frantic, I called up one of your neighbors. I had him check to see if you’d been attacked in your house or something and was lying in a hospital. I was glad to hear from him that that was not the case. I was beginning to think you’d decided not to see me anymore, but I would have preferred to hear it from you.”

  I read Sylvia like a book, so I knew she’d be upset with me because of my unexplained absence. I also knew that she’d still be glad to see me again no matter how long I stayed away.

  “I’ve been real busy with a lot of personal issues,” I said, speaking more harshly than I intended. I immediately softened my voice. “I just needed some time alone to clear my head, that’s all. Baby, I’m so sorry, and I’ll make it up to you. I’ve missed you. . . .”

  “I’ve missed you too. I picked up some of those His and Her steaks a couple of weeks ago that you wanted me to cook for our dinner after the game. They’re still in the freezer. Are you going to be home this evening?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be home.”

  “Did you watch the Super Bowl?”

  “No, I missed it.” I’d drunk so much booze that evening after my meeting with Lola, I had passed out and slept for twenty-four hours. That was the only reason I’d missed the game. And, had it not been for Lola, I wouldn’t have been drinking like a fish in the first place.

  Sylvia gasped. “Oh my God! You really must have been out of it if you missed the Holy Grail of football games. You’ve never missed it.”