by M. E. Hydra
They get older.
Boy asks out other girls. Sometimes they say yes, sometimes no. Mostly he’s more relieved when they say no.
Girl dates another boy, discovers he’s a giant douchebag.
Boy wonders if his future is going to be a life of watching late-night porn with only cold pizza and a box of tissues for company.
Girl wonders if she might be better off asking out other girls.
Then it happens. God, Cupid, the noodly appendage of the Great Invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster, or even just plain chance intervenes and pushes them together long enough for them to realize the truth: They’re high-school sweethearts—two souls destined to come together and be joined for all eternity. It’s fated in the stars.
Boy kisses Girl. Girl kisses Boy.
They live happily ever after.
Credits roll.
The end.
Only it never is...
* * * *
Eight years later...
“I wish she was dead,” Court McCann muttered morosely into his beer.
“Come on, you don’t really mean that,” Jimmy Morrison, his best bud, said.
“Yes I do,” McCann grumbled. “I wish the frozen shit from an airplane toilet would fall out of the sky and land right on her head. I wish it would smash her so far into the ground I wouldn’t even need to pay for a funeral.”
He didn’t, not really. He just wished his life had walked down a different path. One less... bland.
It was past ten. He was sitting at a corner table with Jimmy down at the Cat’s Eye Bar. His wife was over at Lucinda’s for one of their social gatherings.
“I never would have believed it,” Jimmy said. “Everyone back at high school thought you two were the item. Christ, we all thought the pair of you would still be staring lovingly into each other’s eyes right into your nineties. True love... just like the movies.”
“Hollywood is full of shit,” McCann said.
“What happened? You caught her playing Hide the Hot Dog with the gardener?” Jimmy, being a best bud, tried to inject some levity.
Jimmy was his best bud, his little buddy. That’s what he’d been to McCann all through high school—little buddy. Jimmy had always been a little shorter than McCann, a little less athletic, a little less good-lucking—a natural sidekick, McCann’s wing man.
“It would have been better if she had fucked the gardener,” McCann said. “Then I wouldn’t have to feel so guilty about not loving her anymore.”
“It sparked out, huh,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, that’s about right,” McCann said. “You know how it was. Back then me and Sharon sparked so bright it was like we had our own personal sun to keep us warm. Then it fades, until one morning you wake up and realize it’s not there anymore. Worse, you can’t even remember if it was ever there in the first place.”
“I hear ya,” Jimmy said. “Only took four years for mine to fizzle out. Although it was none too bright to begin with, if you wanna know the truth.”
“I thought having Alvin would help... rekindle it, you know. Now it’s worse. Now I’m trapped. What kind of asshole runs out on his wife and young son. He’s a great kid too. I love him but I’m scared I’ll end up blaming him and resenting him for making me feel like I’m caged. I don’t want to be one of those asshole dads that knocks their kids around because life didn’t turn out the way they hoped.”
Both men supped their beer in melancholy silence. McCann lowered his voice and leaned forwards. He didn’t want any of the old coots eavesdropping on this little nugget of shit.
“We haven’t had sex since last November,” he whispered. “I haven’t asked for it and she hasn’t seemed too bothered about it going away. I feel like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty—whacking off in the shower is the fucking high point of the day.”
Jimmy shook his head in sympathetic disgust.
“You can’t go on like that. It ain’t natural. Tell her how you feel. File for divorce.”
“I can’t do that,” McCann said. “I’ll lose everything... Alvin, and I’ll still have to stump up alimony. You know how it is: It’s a man’s world... until he dumps his wife.”
“Too right, bro,” Jimmy said. “Unless you know the right people.” This was added as an afterthought and Jimmy stared down into his beer as if he hoped McCann hadn’t heard it.
McCann had. He thought about his little buddy. Except now, eight years later, Jimmy was the one with the fast car, the nice house, the blingy outfits, the better-paid job. Jimmy was the one everyone saw about town with a different hot babe on his arm every night. He wasn’t the sidekick anymore; he was the main man.
“How did you get rid of Cindy?” McCann asked him. “You hooked up with her about the same time as me.”
Jimmy became strangely evasive. He looked at the TV, sideways to another group sitting at the next table, down at his beer. Anywhere but at McCann.”
“What’s the secret?” McCann asked.
Jimmy looked like a hunted thing. As if he saw watching eyes everywhere.
“You’ve had too much,” he said. “You’ll think differently in the morning.”
“Like fuck will I,” McCann said. “It’s dead and ashes. See that badass motherfucker over there in the cowboy boots and leather jacket? If that badass motherfucker was a hitman I’d walk over there, right now, and offer him twenty thou to put a bullet in her head.”
Jimmy looked uncomfortable. He kept looking around the bar. Finally, one side won out in whatever internal conflict had afflicted him and he took out his wallet. Behind his last credit card was a business card. It was rumpled and dog-eared, as if it had been buried in the back of his wallet and left there for some time. He passed it to McCann.
The design on the front was of a broken heart, but with ropes tied around one half as if it was being hauled away. Written on the back in an elegant font was the legend, The High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency.
“I used them when things between Cindy and me weren’t going so well,” Jimmy said. “No accusations, no messy divorce, no lawyers... just a clean break and a fresh start.”
There was a number on the back of the card. McCann was tapping it into his mobile phone when Jimmy reached over to put his hand over McCann’s.
“Wait until the morning,” Jimmy said. “Give yourself a chance to think things over.”
Gone was the easygoing playboy buddy. Jimmy looked like a man trying to sell state secrets and terrified government agents would pounce on him at any moment.
“If you feel anything, anything, for Sharon and Alvin you’ll put that card at the back of a drawer and never look at it again.”
* * * *
McCann waited until the next day. He waited long enough for her to tell him that same stupid anecdote about the minister that hadn’t been funny the first ten times he’d heard it. He waited until she left the house to go to her church social and then pulled the card out of his pocket and rang the number on the back.
The woman on the other end had the sexiest voice McCann had ever heard. Like black chocolate dipped in honey and lying in a cradle of crushed velvet.
“This is the High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency, how may we be of service?”
Her tongue rolled around the words as though she was pleasuring them and McCann felt a surge of blood rush down to his crotch. He was uncomfortably aware of how long it had been since he’d last had sex.
She was probably just a little old spinster with knitting needles in her hair, but what a voice.
“I have a problem. A friend said you might be able to help out.”
* * * *
“It’s a surprise, for Valentine’s Day,” McCann said.
He pulled up and parked outside a nondescript building in an equally nondescript business park. McCann saw a shoe store, an IT store and a Hooters restaurant. None of them appeared to be doing great business. McCann’s car was the only one around.
“What sort of surprise?” Sharon asked.
She stared suspiciously at the building in front of them. It looked like a fake Greek temple. Thick white columns supported a wide porch and formed a colonnade facing out onto the lot. There was no branding anywhere to indicate the function of the building or the nature of the business inside.
“If I told you that it wouldn’t be a surprise,” McCann said.
“It’s unlike you to be mysterious,” Sharon said.
That would be because you insist on everything being planned right down to the last detail, he thought, planned until every last morsel of interest was squeezed right out. McCann bit his tongue. Had he noticed how unimaginative and unadventurous she was back at high school, or had he been too busy looking at her tits and legs?
“You know how things have got a little... predictable lately.”
“They have?” his wife asked.
We haven’t fucked in over two months! Do you think that’s normal?
Again McCann swallowed the words back down.
“A little,” McCann said. “So I thought we’d do something special this year, for Valentine’s Day.”
“That’s so sweet,” Sharon said. She moved her hand across and rested it on his thigh. “Do you remember the time you proposed to me?”
He did. It was in the park. Fall was settling in, but the sun still held vestiges of summer’s warmth. A playful breeze careered through the park like a giddy toddler, whipping up crunchy brown leaves in its wake. In the center Sharon stood radiant in a bright summer dress. He was on his knees before her, offering up the ring he’d spent a whole year’s worth of night shifts at the Cat’s Eye Bar saving up for. He remembered her face, the smile, the way her silky blonde hair whipped around in the breeze. She’d been so beautiful in that dress. The memory was as clear as if it had been yesterday.
He paused on opening the door. He didn’t have to do this. He could tell her he’d got the wrong place, drive off and stop at the first restaurant that looked suitably romantic enough.
Then he thought back to that memory. It was as clear as if it had been yesterday, but now he felt more like an observer, as if he was staring at a picture of two lovers rather than being one of them himself. The man looked like him, the woman looked like Sharon (although she’d put on a few pounds since), but it didn’t feel like it was he and Sharon. He felt like he was looking at two actors playing the parts of Court and Sharon in a movie of his life and adding a Hollywood glow to events he was no longer confident had even happened this way. The man in the scene must have loved that woman a great deal, but try as he might, McCann couldn’t find that feeling hiding anywhere inside him.
He opened the door.
“Do you think Alvin will be okay,” Sharon said. “You know how fussy he can be around strangers.”
“She came highly recommended,” McCann said.
She was the babysitter, also provided by the High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency. After seeing her turn up on his doorstep, there were plenty of other things McCann would recommend her for. He could happily pound that sweet little ass all night long.
“I’m sure Alvin will be fine. Remember, we’re supposed to relax.” McCann said.
They got out of the car and walked through the entrance into a chic reception area. White lilies stood in vases at either end of a wooden counter. Behind the counter was a strikingly attractive receptionist. McCann gave his name and didn’t have to wait long before an even more beautiful woman entered through the doors to the right of the counter.
“Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. McCann,” she said. “I’m Kate. We’ve been expecting you.”
McCann recognized the voice. It was the same voice he’d spoken to on the phone.
Kate was definitely not a little old lady with knitting needles through her hair.
Her body was hidden beneath an exotic silk robe. The robe was decorated with an intricate rendition of a nightscape—a full moon shining above the vast sprawl of a northern forest. The scene was so skillfully rendered McCann fancied he might be able to step inside and hear wolves howl beneath the shadow-stained canopy.
McCann couldn’t make out much of her body underneath and that mystery added to her eroticism. The fine silk slid over and clung to her curves, teasing him with tantalizing impressions of a hip, a breast, a peach of an ass.
Her face completed the picture. There was a sultry cast to her features, exotic. Hair the color of midnight flowed over her shoulders and she possessed heavy-lidded eyes and full sensual lips. This wasn’t the beauty of a homecoming queen, or Hollywood’s idea of the sweet girl next door. Kate looked like a woman who did all the things the nice girls wouldn’t do.
McCann realized he’d been staring too long. Sharon had noticed and it made her uncomfortable.
Fuck her. She was gone after today if everything went right.
“This is the Spa Athenia. Your pleasure is our pleasure.”
“Oh, a spa, you shouldn’t have.” Sharon put her hands to her cheeks and gushed as though she’d regressed a decade and just been given tickets to a pop concert performed by the heartthrob of the day.
She put an arm around McCann’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“You’re so thoughtful, darling.”
McCann put on his usual forced smile. One day his face would freeze like that. Or maybe it would crack and the top half of his head fall off. Kate met his eyes, saw what was really churning through his gray matter and gave him a sympathetic nod.
“I believe it was the full deluxe package you wanted,” Kate said. “How about we start with a nice relaxing massage?” She turned back to the door. “Emma” she called out.
A redhead wearing another fine silk gown, this one depicting volcanoes and other fiery motifs, walked into the reception area. She was shorter and slimmer than Kate, and had an elfin, almost androgynous, cast to her features. Her fiery red hair was cropped short in a style that would have suited either a boy or girl. She was still attractive in McCann’s opinion.
“What type of massage would you like?” Kate asked Sharon. “Swedish, Deep Tissue...?”
Sharon looked to McCann for guidance. “I don’t know. What do you think, dear?”
McCann resisted the urge to snap, Just pick one, you stupid bitch!
Emma came to his rescue. “My specialty is the Sapphic massage. Why don’t you try that? It’s sensual and very relaxing.”
“Okay, I’ll have that one,” Sharon said.
“Very good,” Kate said. “Emma, if you’d like to lead Mrs. McCann to her room, I’ll see who we have available for her husband.”
Emma took Sharon’s hand and led her through a door on the other side of the reception area. McCann admired the way the silk gown slid over Emma’s body. Nice pert little ass.
Kate led him back through the door she’d entered by.
Another real peach of an ass, McCann thought as he walked behind her.
He considered asking Kate what she was doing later, but he suspected, given the real function of this establishment, she must get hit on so many times she was probably sick of it. Still, he was tempted. After all, the worse that could happen was she’d tell him no.
He’d expected the ‘real’ side of the ‘spa’ to be more business-like. If anything the corridors he walked through seemed too opulent for an average out-of-the-way spa. Kate led him to a darkened room. A large window in the far wall looked out onto an elegant little massage room. McCann saw a comfy-looking massage table and a large screen covered in pictures of foamy waves and sea spume.
In contrast, McCann’s room was far seedier. The only light came through the window looking out onto the other room. A big leather armchair was positioned in front of the window as if facing a flatscreen TV.
“Take a seat,” Kate said.
McCann sat down. The armchair was soft and extremely comfortable.
“Would you like a drink?”
Kate motioned over to a bar in the back corner of the room. McCann was less interested in that than the
platinum-blonde he saw standing in front of it. Another out-and-out knockout, he thought. Her blonde hair was cut to a medium length with plenty of body. Chic. Sapphire eyes smoldered above a cute button nose and glossy bee-stung lips were pushed together in a glamour-model pout.
Like Kate and Emma, she appeared to be wearing only a fine silk robe. Hers depicted birds of prey soaring over a snowy landscape.
McCann wondered if the High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency also doubled up as another type of agency, one that could be found in the phone book under E.
It made shrewd business sense. What better way for a man to celebrate his newfound freedom. They must make a killing.
“I’ll take a Jack D, on the rocks,” he said.
“I’ll have my usual please, Mia.” Kate said.
Kate’s usual appeared to be red wine, though she drank it from a wide, goblet-style glass rather than a normal wine glass. She leaned elegantly against the arm of his chair. Mia, the sexy blonde, handed McCann a tumbler of whisky. Her robes parted enough for McCann to see she had a wonderfully toned body underneath. She wasn’t wearing a bra and he caught a glimpse of her breasts. They formed two perfect hemispheres, each topped with a candy-pink nipple that looked sweet enough to make McCann salivate.
Mia didn’t appear to be done after handing over the drinks. She crouched down and pushed his legs apart. She stared up at him with beautiful blue eyes. Bee-stung lips pouted seductively as she reached into his lap to fiddle with his belt.
McCann looked at Kate.
“All part of the service,” she said, taking another sip of wine.
“I... uh... see,” McCann said.
He wasn’t about to complain. Mia pulled down his pants and moved on to his underwear. She pulled down his briefs with teasing slowness, letting the elastic catch on his erection, dragging it down and then letting it spring back up like a Jack-in-the-Box. Those lips, McCann thought. Puffed up and moist with shiny lip gloss, they seemed custom-designed to give out blowjobs.
She teased him some more. She lightly blew on his twitchy mushroom head while her long fingernails tickled through the hairs on the back of his balls. Her lips pursed, bobbed closer, pulled back, bobbed closer, close enough to give his glans a chaste little kiss, pulled back. She toyed with him, letting his desire bubble up as he stewed in frustration. Then finally those luscious lips parted, her head bobbed down and the tip of his cock was drawn up into the warm interior of her mouth.