by Kris Pearson
She and Romy had cooked some of it up after the meeting.
“I’ll leave my car here,” Romy said.
“It’ll be safe in the garage all night,” Liz promised. “I’ll reverse it out onto the driveway early tomorrow.”
“D’you think he’ll fall for it?” Romy asked. “My little red soft-top’s nice and sporty, but it might look too girly.”
Liz hoped The Bastard would assume it was her mythical new man’s. She nodded slowly. “It needs a bit of disguising”
“A couple of titty mags and a sports paper on the passenger seat?”
Liz grinned. “An empty beer can on the floor?”
“Sounds good.”
“Maybe some macho sunglasses perched on the dash? Someone’s husband left a pair behind after a barbecue. I’ll find those,” Liz said.
They laughed as they hatched their plan before drifting inside.
Romy dug into her Fendi tote (a splurge during a sales conference in Hawaii), and produced a bottle of Shiraz. “For good luck, girlfriend. You and Mr. Mystery have been drinking this together,” she suggested.
Liz inspected the label, nodded her appreciation, and collected two glasses from the cupboard in the dining room. She poured generously, and they sipped. “I’ll leave a bit in the bottom of these. And put the bottle on the coffee table with them. I found this cigarette packet someone threw over the front fence, too.”
Romy set her glass down on the counter and wrinkled her nose.
“You don’t like the idea of a smoker?”
“You’ll have to find an ashtray and some butts to make it look real.
Liz grimaced, crumpled the packet, and tossed it into the garbage bucket.
“But….?” Romy dived into her tote again and located an end of fabric, twitching it out and out like a magician with a silk scarf. “It’s the genuine article,” she said, once most of the garment was visible. “Neill’s. Big man, big shirt.” She buried her nose in it. “God, he smells good, my man.” She offered it to Liz, who took it gingerly.
Romy grinned. “Yes, it’s been worn. If you leave an expensive, rumpled shirt trailing over the end of your sofa, The Bastard will think for sure it’s been ripped off in the frenzy to get you into the bedroom.”
“Nice. Nice. What else? A pair of my panties?”
A bit much, they’d decided with regret.
Liz’s eyes lit up. “I’ll have the bedroom CD player blasting out some Guns’n’Roses.”
“The Bastard’s favorite, I presume? Nice touch—that’ll really rub salt in.”
“And I’ll turn on the shower the minute I hear him arriving. He can presume my new lover’s waiting for me to come back to bed for some really hot sex once the kids are out of the way.” Liz smiled with satisfaction. Not bad. “And in the morning, I need to look amazing. Sort of glamorous and exhausted at the same time.”
“Wash your hair tonight so it’s all tousled and shiny for tomorrow,” Romy advised. “Put on plenty of eye makeup and smudge it about. No lipstick—but maybe some shimmery lip gloss?”
And I’ll bite my lips a lot in the morning before I put the gloss on. I need that kissed-all-night look.”
“A real hoochie mama,” Romy agreed.
In truth it was damned difficult producing men out of thin air. Liz had the children to look after all week and every second weekend. She loved them to bits—would fight to her last breath to retain legal custody of them. But they did cramp her style, no mistake. Who wanted a girlfriend free to go out only on alternate weekends?
However, The Bastard was not to know that.
Every time she saw him, Liz indicated her life was full of randy men queuing for the pleasure of her body. And sometimes it was. But lately they tended to live on the pages of her current work-in-progress—a steamy revenge fantasy where heroine Marcy took up with a different guy in every chapter, and cut each of them down to size.
It was easy when she wrote. In her fantasy life she was strong and invulnerable...feisty and confident. She tried so hard to project the same image in real life, but some of it was a sham. She knew—but did the rest of the world?
She had a decent house, anyway. The Bastard earned plenty, and had wanted a flashy address to compete with the partners in the law firm. So the family home remained hers. And that had been pretty much her half of the settlement. He got the investments, the good car, the partly-paid-for beach cottage up north. No doubt he’d done better than she had. The Child Support money seemed stingy.
He still had his high-earning job while she scrambled around working nine till one, ferrying children, shopping and cooking, helping with homework, trying to keep the house clean and the garden tidy and have a life. Some life.
And now she’d volunteered to smarten Ian up so he could have a life. Well, the suntan would help. And he simply had to look better wearing anything other than his usual selection of horrible baggy clothes.
He needed a proper haircut, for sure. She’d take him to Tony. She entrusted him with trimming her ends and applying her color treatments. Liz had faith he’d transform Ian’s unruly brown mop into something—anything—more stylish.
But it wasn’t what Marcy would have done to Ian. She would have shot him a glance filled with purest venom. Flicked a disdainful finger at that awful green shirt. Turned her back on him and stalked off on her five inch heels, or her combat boots, or whatever necessary footwear she wore for the current chapter.
What would Marcy do to The Bastard? Something worse than running the shower to simulate a lover, that was for sure. She would...
...visit the offices of Benton, McKenzie and Willis just as their sniffy receptionist Ingrid left for lunch.
Marcy threw a pitying glance at Ingrid’s timid black on-the-knee, oh-so-proper skirt. At her flesh colored pantyhose and low heeled pumps.
Swept her exotic eyes over Ingrid’s conservative high necked blouse with its little pearl buttons—echoed so drearily by the small pearl studs in her ears.
“So, how’s it hanging at BMW?” she demanded.
“Hanging?” Ingrid queried.
“The gentlemen’s appendages. Stiff with pride and profits, or limp with lamentations? I’m sure Mr. Benton has a boner, and Mr. Willis has a whopper, but what about that bastard McKenzie? My husband...your lover.”
Ingrid blanched still further.
“Paul is—very well, thank you Ms McKenzie.”
Marcy hitched one foot up onto the cream leather sofa that was the pride of Ingrid’s domain. Her stiletto heel dug deeply into the seat cushion. She heard Ingrid stifle a moan of compassion for the upholstery...watched her eyes goggle as Marcy pushed the multicolored many-layered chiffon skirt high up her spectacular thigh to refasten one of the suspenders attached to her fishnet stocking.
She sighed with satisfaction. Ingrid was following her every move with helpless fascination...as trapped as a fly in a spider’s silken web.
She bent forward, pretending to adjust her shoe, ensuring her breasts swung free from the low cut neckline of her black leotard. Her peacock-blue sequined nipple covers glinted in the harsh light.
“Do you wear these for Paul?” she asked the shaken secretary, running a manicured finger and thumb along her breast until they framed its peak. She made no move to conceal her breasts. Ingrid stared, transfixed, shaking her head at such a flagrant display.
“Oh, you should,” Marcy continued. “He loves exotic touches like this. You could really turn him on if you tried to. I could help you...?”
She let the suggestion hang in the air as she tucked each breast back inside the stretchy fabric.
Ingrid gaped like a fish.
“What a pretty little mouth you have, Ingrid,” Marcy purred. “So soft and kissable. I’m sure Paul would adore you in one of those sexy masks that conceal everything except your pretty...soft...kissable...mouth.” As she cooed each word, Marcy reached out and stroked the pad of her thumb back and forth across Ingrid’s drooping bottom lip. Lily of the Valley perfume w
afted from the secretary’s neck. How predictable...
“And he’d find all sorts of uses for such a wet little hidey-hole when it was so nicely displayed.”
Ingrid’s eyes went huge.
“Come with me,” Marcy invited. “You were just going out to lunch, I think? We could have a little something together?” She enclosed Ingrid’s hot fingers in her own long-taloned hand. She tugged. Ingrid followed, obedient as a puppy.
“Just in here,” Marcy indicated, pushing open a door half a block from the law office. She clasped Ingrid’s waist and guided her up the steps.
They turned together into an empty office, and Ingrid looked about with puzzlement when Marcy locked the door. “I thought you said lunch?”
“I said ‘a little something’, actually. I may have meant you.” In a flash she pulled down the suspended handcuffs, snapped them around Ingrid’s wrists, hauled on the rope so the secretary’s arms were raised high above her head, and secured it to a sturdy window catch. “Not a word, Ingrid. Not a murmur!” She flourished the evil looking little pistol she always carried in her bag. Ingrid gulped and nodded. “And now we’ll get rid of these annoying clothes, darling.”
She slipped the first pearl button from its buttonhole. Ingrid’s eyes scrunched closed in terror. Her heart thumped; Marcy gloried in the rapid pulse in Ingrid’s neck. Lily of the Valley pumped, terror-stricken, into the dusty air of the disused room. That was more like it! Bitch!
Marcy completed her unbuttoning to reveal a flesh colored bra.
“Oh, boring, sweetie...”
She unhooked the bra and lifted it for a peek at the scared white breasts underneath.
“They could do with some excitement, couldn’t they? Paul would be so turned-on if he thought your tits had had some thrills while they weren’t with him.”
Marcy hummed happily as she took nail scissors from her bag and cut the bra straps through. She tossed the boring bra against the wall. Then she cut the blouse sleeves apart and removed that as well.
Ingrid stood to rigid attention, arms hauled taut, eyes now wide open, nipples stiff with terror.
Marcy touched a talon to each. Ingrid flinched.
“That’s just the way we need them—nice and tight. Well done.”
She dug in the roomy bag again and produced a tiny bottle of contact adhesive and a handful of small sequined shapes. She smoothed the glue onto the puckered peaks.
“Green?” she asked, holding a glittering emerald circle against Ingrid’s pale skin. “Or a little red heart? Or these black goodies with the tassels? Your choice, Ingrid. No—not speaking? Well, the black looks good to me. And I’m sure Paul will love them.” She applied glue to each, and set them aside.
She removed the rest of Ingrid’s clothes, and fixed the small glittering cones in place.
Ingrid moaned, looking down at her cheaply ornamented body.
Marcy glanced at her watch. Time was getting short. She produced a battery shaver and ran it over Ingrid’s groin, letting the crinkly curls fall onto the floor.
“Open your legs. Good girl.”
Fearfully, Ingrid obeyed, inching her feet apart in their uninspiring shoes. Marcy buzzed away, pressing the pulsating little shaver against poor Ingrid’s pussy, knowing the vibrations would shoot right up through her core.
“Left foot up,” she demanded, peeling the shoes and clothes away from Ingrid’s ankle. “And now the right.” She tossed them against the wall. Without her shoes, Ingrid’s arms were horribly stretched.
Marcy slipped her own shoes off and set them beside Ingrid’s feet.
“Pop my heels on, sweetie. They’ll raise you up a little. Much more comfortable. And won’t your legs look longer...” The spike-heeled shoes and tiny tasseled cones were now the total costume.
She ran a caressing finger over Ingrid’s pale exposed mound, then pressed a garish lipstick kiss onto it, registering the tiny bristles with her lips.
Ingrid was unwise enough to try and kick her. Marcy grabbed her leg and exposed her glistening flesh.
“Why Ingrid, you’re so wet!”
Smiling with triumph, she packed her curious tool-bag, slid into Ingrid’s shoes, and stood ready to leave. “One final little touch,” she said, renewing her lipstick. She kissed each breast as Ingrid hung there, helpless. Then she pulled out her cell-phone and snapping a photo. “I’ll send him that to let him know you’re having a lovely time. He’ll be here soon. I’m sure he’ll be so pleased for you. Or maybe not...?”
She left.
CHAPTER 18 - VI IS VEXED IN THE VEGGIE PLOT
Vi found it surprisingly difficult. She was an adult aged seventy-six. She’d been married for many years. Produced a son. Had big teenage grandchildren—the photos on the mantelpiece were proof enough of that.
She had absolute privacy here at home. She could type anything at all on the paper, and screw it up and burn it if she didn’t want other eyes seeing it.
But by late evening the words still wouldn’t appear. And she knew them all! They were in the books she read...in the chapters the younger women brought along to the meetings.
Everyday words, arranged so that the writing shone vivid with lust and longing. So you could hear the sighs, and the slap of flesh against flesh. And almost smell the hot bedrooms and rumpled sheets and energetic bodies.
Vi’s secret dreams of publishing steamier stories as Lettie Berryman or May Tartley were fading fast.
She always came away from the meetings invigorated. Couldn’t wait to get to her dear old Brother electric typewriter as soon as she arrived home. And it had been a good meeting today—an eye-opener in some ways.
Liz’s revelations about her—ahem!—pubic hair had really set Vi back on her heels. She was still cogitating about the sac and crack thing the ex-husband had endured for his new girlfriend. She had a horrible suspicion she’d worked it out. Not his bottom and scrotum, surely? She pursed her mouth with imagined pain.
Nurse Mandy might make a better fist of things with an actual plot line to follow. A shame she had so much time in which to write and so little ability. She was very keen, poor girl.
Ian’s synopsis had been enjoyable—not really a romance, but he had a strong relationship threaded in and out of the exciting spy story he’d attempted.
Meg had mentioned a new gentleman friend, and Vi’s ears had pricked up at that. Meg was a nice woman. She’d done a good job of raising that son on her own for the last few years. And it looked as though he’d taken a shine to Eloise’s daughter—although that was a non-starter because the girl was several years older than he was.
(But if she’d been able to see what Ben and Tigger were attempting at that very moment on the rug at the beach she’d have stopped worrying about Paul’s scrotum entirely.)
“How does it feel? Tell me how it feels, Ben.”
“Mmmmfff...yeah...like a hot wet octopus...like you’re full of warm custard...like I’m sliding in noodles...”
“Noodles?”
“Slippery...soft....God, Tigger—that won’t fit...shit...oh yeahhhhhhh...”
So—two widows (herself and Meg), two divorcees (Liz and Romy, although Romy was married to Neill these days), two other married women (Eloise and Mandy) and two single people (Ian and Bobbie.) What an interesting symmetry their little group had.
Vi returned her eyes to the all too blank page she’d lined up in her trusty Brother. Typed a few words and ’d them out. And then began a story about a group of writers who met on the third Saturday of each month. The shy bachelor, who looked rather like Ian, and the quiet spinster (Bobbie with a nicer hairstyle), were gradually drawn together, despite the quarrels over her naughty cat digging up his prize vegetables. She was away! But for sure these characters weren’t going to end up panting and playing with sex-toys in bed. They’d be lucky if she allowed them more than one kiss before she drew the curtain, and the readers once again had to imagine the rest.
Maybe next time?
She sighe
d with vexation as she got up to make another cup of tea.
CHAPTER 19 - MEG RECEIVES A PROPOSITION
Al had shocked her. He was well dressed and seemed to have money to burn. Their dinner had been quite expensive, with dessert wine as well as the first delicious bottle that had partly disappeared down her cleavage. Meg felt pampered.
He’d talked about his job to begin with. And out of the blue asked, “Have you ever tried the dating agencies or the internet sites? It’s a whole new ballgame, searching for a partner these days.”
She shook her head, amazed he’d mention the subject or even need any help. “I haven’t been looking for anyone really.”
“It’s a circus. Beyond belief. The agencies want all the information in the world out of you, and then come up with someone totally unsuitable.”
“Who’ve you met?” she asked, intrigued.
“There are four types of women looking for a man, I reckon.” He emphasized them by counting them off on his fingers. “The spinsters. Dried up as prunes. Won’t let you near them. Useless.”
“And...?”
“The divorcees. Tried one man...it didn’t work...want to try again. You can see why it didn’t work the first time.”
“Mmm...?”
“The gold diggers. Want someone to pay the bills, especially for the kids they’ve had with someone else.”
“And...?”
“The career women. Hard as nails. Absolute bitches. Anything you can do, they’ve already done better. God knows why they’re even looking...”
Meg laughed as he concluded his list. “Maybe you’ve just had bad luck?”
“You can say that again. I’ve cut back a lot of my work since Michael came to live with me. Amazing what you can delegate when you really try. Bloody Diana was right after all.” He pulled down the corners of his mouth and shrugged. “The cycling’s good exercise, but I can’t do that non-stop. I want a new playmate. Someone nice and soft and affectionate. I’ll buy her dinners and flowers and whatever else she wants, but I need to fancy the woman, dammit!”