by Zoey Oliver
He twists his lips into a smirk and looks me up and down. Before I can say anything else, his arms close around me, squeezing me in a tight, dust-scented hug.
“You are the cutest construction worker I ever had,” he remarks. “But to be honest, I think we have the whole thing handled. You want to see?”
“Definitely!”
Dad leads the way, swooping his arm out gallantly so I can enter. As soon as I walk over the threshold, I stop, trying to take it all in.
The whole place is different. Not gutted, but not the same. The suspended ceiling is gone. The office door is now the color of unfinished wood with a gleaming pewter handle. It’s as though everything has been scraped down past the grime. Not finished, exactly—but it’s more of a clean slate.
“Now, I realize you’re going to have to use a little imagination…” he begins cautiously.
“Oh, I totally see it!” I reassure him, a smile stretching across my face. “In fact, if I squint, it almost looks like it has a chance! Really!”
He nudges me gently on the shoulder with his elbow. “It’s got more than a chance, JoJo,” he chides me. “It’s going to happen. I give you my word. What’s really great is Phyllis had all of the electrical and plumbing upgraded right before she passed on. And the structure is in great condition. The rest is just the bathrooms for wheelchair access and cosmetic stuff. We got this.”
I look up at him, grinning. “You know what? I’m not even worried,” I tell him truthfully. “I think this is going to be okay!”
Dipping his head to kiss me on my forehead, he gives me a wink and pivots away to a small group of men who look like they are not working at peak efficiency right now. On my own, I sort of circle the perimeter of the room, trying to imagine it in a few days. When the new ceiling tiles and the track lighting are in, the whole place will feel different. New drywall and refinished floors… Paint... Signage and some well-placed sculptures…
Holy cow. It’s going to be okay.
Absentmindedly I drag my cell phone from my back pocket and start dialing before I even know I’m doing it. In a few seconds, Didi’s voice is on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she says tentatively.
“Didi! Hey, girl, what’s up?” I say cheerily as I brush some ceiling dust off the wall.
Honestly, do we need new drywall? I think distractedly, I wonder if paint and a picture rail would solve this. Maybe save us a couple of days. I should ask my dad.
“Joe? Um, you called me?” she says, her voice slow and cautious.
“Oh, right! Hey… I just want to give you an update. Looks like we’re good. I mean, it’s not great. It’s probably not going to be everything that you planned. But we will be on schedule. The opening is good to go.”
“What? Seriously?” comes her hurried response. “Oh my God. I thought you were calling to tell me that we were going to have to cancel! That is so great!”
“Just count yourself lucky that my dad is some kind of genius,” I smile.
I know I should be more stern with her, but at this point, all I can feel is relief.
“Yes! A genius! That’s what I’ve always said!”
This feels good, I have to admit. Really good. So good, I’m having a hard time remembering why I did not want to be a part of it at all.
“So can you send me a video?” she asks carefully.
“A video? Of what?”
“Like, the space. Like just walk around. So Martha knows—”
“Hold on, Martha knows what I’m doing here, right? You told her, right?”
“I don’t know… told her what?”
I stop walking and plant my feet, perching my fist on my hip.
“Didi, did you tell her that the gallery didn’t get done? That we are trying to play catch-up?”
I hear her cough, twelve hundred miles away.
“Didi?”
“Joe, what’s to tell? You just told me everything was going to be finished, right? So what would be the point?”
“I don’t know… Maybe letting her know how I spent fifty thousand dollars in less than two weeks? Don’t you think she’s going to wonder about that?”
“Oh, she barely pays attention to any of that kind of stuff,” Didi replies breezily. “I don’t even think she will notice.”
“But if she does notice, you’re okay with her laying everything on me? Is that what you are telling me?”
“Joe, you are really being dramatic about this,” she snaps.
I freeze in place, grinding my molars together. It feels like Didi is pushing me in front of the bus, yet again. She does this when she feels cornered. She looks for a shield, I figure.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her. “How is your leg?”
“I can barely feel it!” she giggles. “Or anything else, for that matter.”
My stomach tightens. She did break her leg just a few days ago. It should be pretty sore.
“Oh, you got some good pain relievers?”
“Joe, I got the best pain relievers! The absolute best.”
“You have to be careful with those,” I tell her, aware that I sound like I am mothering her. “They sound pretty strong.”
“Whatever. You break your leg sometime, and then tell me what to do. You know what I’m saying?”
I shake my head but don’t answer her. I do not know what she is saying, honestly.
“So, I gotta go!” she singsongs. “Say hi to the family for me!”
The line goes dead, and I let my hand fall to my side. Tension creeps through my body, starting in my gut. On the other hand, I realize that I’m just now feeling it. So that means I didn’t feel it this morning, and maybe that really was because of Dr. Warner.
But here it is again, right back where I started. It’s like a thundercloud going over the sun. The gallery seemed completely possible, and everything felt for a moment like it was going to work out. Now I am shrouded in doubt again, worrying about things I can’t control.
Didi sounds suspiciously pain-free. With her tendency to go overboard, I wonder if anybody is keeping an eye on her back in New York. But I am too far away to do anything about it. And I have plenty to keep me busy here. More than enough.
I slide the heel of my hand across the plaster wall again, happy to have something solid to push my weight against. My dad catches my eye from across the room and I jerk my chin at him, to get his attention.
“What’s up, JoJo?” he asks.
“I was just thinking, is the plaster okay like it is? Maybe we don’t have to drywall?”
He leans back on his heels, contemplatively scanning the wall from here to the front window.
“You could be right,” he nods. “That would save us a couple of days, to be honest. We could give the floor an extra day to harden.”
“Yeah? Would that work?”
“Yeah, I think it would,” he smiles at me, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear. “You’re a genius, JoJo. Just like your old man.”
I love the praise, and I feel pretty good as he walks away, but I can’t shake the rain clouds that have covered my mood now. All the things I have to do crowd into my mind at once, all jockeying for position, and I can’t focus. And then I remember I may have a way out of this.
Picking my cell phone back up, I find Dr. Warner in my contact list.
Hi.
I squint at the phone. That was a terrible message. But he replies right away.
Hi, yourself. What’s up?
For a moment, I’m not sure what to say. Do I flirt? Do I make an appointment with Jen or something? Then again, I think we’ve already discussed the parameters of our arrangement. I should just be direct, right?
I think I need to see you today. Six o’clock, my place?
He answers in ten seconds.
I’ll be there.
Chapter Thirteen
Sturgill
Sometimes I wish I had a little bit more to do. Only four hundred people live in Willowdale, and t
hey hardly ever seem to get sick all at once. Apparently all the sunshine and ocean air really is good for us.
When I was in Costa Rica, the situation was a little different. I guess the point of the Peace Corps is to go to places that really need help, but that was much more urgent. People in the United States don’t generally die of dysentery. People in South America, especially in the more remote areas, sometimes do.
I thought about staying there, based on some kind of heroic image of myself. It was nice to get extremely busy. Wake up at five in the morning and get done sometime around midnight, that was the usual day. Everybody was focused on the mission: saving lives, making a better future.
In Willowdale, things hardly ever get all that urgent.
Of course, sometimes people pass away. Thankfully, they usually die of old age around here. Old age is terrible, but hardly tragic. People live full lives, and then they take their leave. It’s nature.
Before she passed, my mother told me this was the ideal aspiration. Shepherding my flock from the cradle to the grave, and having a wife and children, of course, too. I haven’t managed to put that last part together, but I think my mother would be proud of the shepherding part, at least.
To be honest, that does sort of stand out when there is less to do. In an emergency, it’s hard to think about making a family. If things are less of an emergency, the absence of a family life is like a gong that rings every morning when I come down the stairs.
When I was a kid, this house seemed obnoxiously lavish. Yes, it has been in my family for generations. My grandfather built it, so it’s not like my parents went out and tried to make some kind of statement. When my grandfather built it, land was cheap and a doctor having a big house wasn’t considered a huge extravagance.
Actually, it probably didn’t seem like an extravagance to my father either. It seems like it to me a little bit, because I am by myself and because in Costa Rica I happily lived in two hundred square feet for three years.
I even considered staying there, but I knew I was needed back home. I knew that the Alzheimer’s that had taken my grandfather might eventually take my father. I had to be ready to step into his shoes.
There are echoes in this house of my father, my mother, my grandparents. There’s probably echoes of me running around like a maniac up and down the hall. I seem to remember I had up tricycle with plastic wheels and I liked to ride it inside the house. The driveway is all crushed oyster shells, kind of terrible for a tricycle. The hallway, on the other hand, is perfect.
Harriet raises her eyebrows at me when I come down for coffee, since it is already almost lunchtime. I don’t have anything on the books, so I didn’t see the need to go into the office today. Besides, I saw the look that Jen gave me when I asked to examine Joanna. I don’t feel like dealing with her disapproving glares right now.
Joanna.
Does she look like the sort of person who has never experienced an orgasm before? That took me aback. That was almost more information than I could stand and I felt an overwhelming urge to take her, to make her mine. Professional distance be damned, I wanted to have her right then.
Never? Never once? It explains a lot. I almost feel bad for her… Actually, I do feel bad for her. I can imagine going through life without being able to release, without being able to hit my brain’s internal button to trigger bliss. The poor woman was tortured, and I bet she didn’t even know it.
But as she squirmed underneath me, her head thrown back, her hair sticking to her in damp tendrils as I brought her body to its natural state of climax, I could feel the transformation taking place. I could feel I was really doing something worthwhile, maybe even changing her life.
I wonder how she feels today?
All day, I try to not think about that, but I can’t seem to stop. Finally, when I am almost ready to give up, I get a message.
Hi.
Hi yourself, I text back immediately.
Relief washes through me. She needs me again.
When I knock on the door, I hear a scuffle inside. It takes a while, but the door flings open. Joanna stands there with one hand behind her back, a pale blue dress dangling off one shoulder and wrinkled around the middle where she is clutching it.
“I can’t… um… reach the zipper?”
She backs sheepishly into the room as I walk over the threshold, her bare feet light on the floorboards. As she breathes quickly, her flesh is hollow behind her collarbones, so delicate, like the throat of a bird.
“Are you asking me to zip up your dress?”
Her brow furrows. “I just thought I had a minute to look for a dress for the opening,” she explains in a rush. “This was my grandmother’s.”
“All right, turn around,” I suggest.
She pivots on her tiptoes, reaching up to hold her hair out of the way as she turns her back toward me. The sky-blue fabric separates in a V over the smooth skin of her spine. Slowly I draw the middle tab of the zipper toward the nape of her neck, barely resisting the urge to kiss her there. It seems like a ideal moment: a man zipping up a dress and placing a kiss on the back of the woman’s neck.
Totally out of bounds, I remind myself.
“Do you like it?” she breathes when the dress is in place. Taking a light step away, she pivots around to face me again. The hem of the dress swirls out as she does it and she catches it lightly in her fingertips. She is a beautiful picture, practically plucked from the pages of a 1960s fashion magazine.
“Your grandmother’s, you say?”
“All her things are here,” she smiles. “It’s an absolute treasure trove! Most of these are handmade, I’m pretty sure. People in New York would pay a fortune to have these!”
“I can see why,” I murmur as she prances away into the bedroom.
She didn’t explicitly invite me, but curiosity draws me to follow her anyway.
“Don’t mind the mess, please,” she winces as I enter, glancing around nervously.
It looks like a fabric bomb went off in here. There are boxes on the floor with the lids halfway off. Dresses on hangers dangle from doorknobs, from the back of the full-length mirror and from the top of the closet door. There have to be a dozen of them in every shade of the rainbow with stripes and dots and flowers, each one more feminine than the last. Something about this unabashed display of ladylike charm tickles something deep inside me.
But I am not here to be charmed. I’m here to offer a service, as agreed.
“Do you like the blue? Or how about the violet? Or maybe the tangerine? That might be too much with my hair, don’t you think?”
I clear my throat. “I thought perhaps I could give you some instruction,” I begin, keeping my voice steady. “Maybe teach you how to pleasure yourself. Would you like that?”
Her lips pop open with a tiny sound and she pauses, swaying for a moment. Again I have a vision of her swooning, allowing me to catch her, allowing me to gather her up.
All right, Dr. Stud, I tell myself. That’s enough of that. Just stay focused.
“Like now? Like right now?” she whispers.
“That’s what you requested. So, yes. Right now,” I confirm, taking the chair from behind the dressing table and placing it in front of the mirror. I sit in it and pat my lap. “Come and sit.”
Obediently she walks over to me, biting her lip as she lowers herself onto my lap. I wrap my hands around her waist and reposition her so that we both face the mirror. Her legs naturally drape over mine and I nudge them apart.
“Just let your legs fall open,” I direct her. “Lean back against me. You will be able to see.”
From my pocket I withdraw the small, handheld vibrator I brought to give her. It snaps on, and her eyes go wide.
“Is this how you train everybody?” she breathes.
“No. This is just for you,” I assure her. “Pull up your skirt.”
Her fingertips play at the hem of her skirt for a few moments till she gathers the courage to reveal herself. The blue fabric sli
des up over her open thighs, gradually pushing that amber-thatched pussy into view. She is already wet and gleaming, the petals of her sex unfolding in front of us.
I pluck her left hand off her lap and spread her fingers into a V-shape. “Use these fingers to massage your outer lips.”
Her nostrils flare as she breathes deeply, enthralled by the vision of herself spread open in the mirror. Obediently her fingers drift toward her sex and gently pull her lips slightly farther apart.
“That’s good,” I encourage her, shifting so that she can’t feel the hard-on that is raging beneath her. I thought I could control myself, but this is more intense than I expected.
Handing her the vibrator in her other hand, I nudge it toward her vulva.
“Your clitoris is the pearl at the top of your sex,” I explain. I can hear my voice getting hoarse. “I want you to take the head of the vibrator and simply circle it. Don’t touch it directly. It’s too sensitive for that. Just slowly circle it.”
We both watch as the device brushes the candy-pink flesh near her clit. Gleaming strands of wetness surge around the metallic knob, glistening as she strokes herself.
Her head drops back and her eyes close. I hear her breath deepen as her weight shifts against me. Taking a chance while she is distracted, I let my hands move to her hips and direct her ass cheeks over my cock. Her clenching muscles send shockwaves through my body.
“Like this?” she gasps as he arches her back, her expression transported, her mouth trembling.
“Just like that,” I confirm, trying to keep my voice even. “Just stay there until the tension builds, until you absolutely have to change positions. Don’t touch your clit until you have to. Until you can’t hold back.”
I can smell her sweat changing, feel her heat through the back of her dress. The image in the mirror is almost too much for me: this vintage vision of a woman in rapture, her throat exposed, her pussy spread open right in front of me under the folds of her full skirts. As she writhes, her ass cheeks clench over the underside of my raging cock, threatening to milk me through my trousers.
“Yeahhhh,” she moans, “I think… I need…”