by King Key
Out of curiosity, I ask her what we would have done if someone sneaked up and caught us before we could act as if nothing were happening. Her words chill me: “What do you mean, ‘we’? I would have yelled, ‘Rape!’”
III.
I don’t see Mrs. Hipps again until Mrs. Johnson’s party during Thanksgiving break, and even then she acts distant. She finally consents to meet me at the park, where no one that we know will see us—just to talk.
When we meet, she tells me she’s visiting another state for a month to look for a new house. She’ll be back for Mom’s holiday party in December. She tells me to keep a secret: At the party she plans to clean out the women’s pocketbooks. She pauses to see if I’ll volunteer to help her, and like a sap, I say I’ll do anything she tells me to do. But she tantalizes me. She’s not sure she’ll let me assist her or reward me. I shamelessly beg.
If she decides to let me join her, she says we’ll divide the money before we leave. If one of us gets caught, we must vow not to tell on the other. Mrs. Hipps tells me goodbye. She’ll let me know, during the holiday party, if she plans to enfold me in the sanctuary of her arms during her next caper, or abandon me.
The same dilemma: Taking me in her arms gives me the sweetest nectar I know, just letting me belong to her. Her sexual prowess makes a magnificent dessert. But when she embraces me, with her arms or with her spirit, her nourishing inclusion provides the rich banquet that feeds me. If she turns me down, a thousand winter nights couldn’t match the coldness of her rejection.
It’s the holiday season, the night of the party. I spot Mrs. Hipps in our living room, wearing Mom’s pearl necklace! She stands beside a mirror—the better to admire herself—in another shiny, black dress. I crave a hug from her, to nestle into her softness and inhale her marshmallow and lavender perfume. She nods at me. I feel like dancing on the furniture!
She picks her moment. Our main bathroom is full. She excuses herself to use the bathroom in the guest bedroom. Minutes later I manage to slip in to join Mrs. Hipps. Her dress, glimmering in the dim light, summons me like a beacon. I long to copulate with her right there. But we systematically move from pocketbook to pocketbook, emptying cash as we go. My cock stiffens and threatens to ejaculate each time Mrs. Hipps stuffs a wad of money in her garterbelt or stockings. She lets me slide most of my dollar bills into her enchanted zone of flesh and latex. Lust rages through me. She’s all business.
She hands me two hundred dollars or so to put in my pockets. She’s crammed about five times that amount inside her lingerie. She offers a different plan this time: Meet her at the town’s most exclusive ladies’ shoe store at ten forty-five. She leaves first.
I tell Mom I’m meeting friends at the mall. She shakes her head as if I don’t have friends. She’s nearly correct. I go to the mall but hang out by myself, mostly to keep warm. About ten thirty, I drive over to the shoe store Mrs. Hipps mentioned. It’s a street front store, not in a mall. Punctually, at ten forty-five, Mrs. Hipps parks behind me on the street and rolls her window down. I follow suit, and she tells me to get in.
She’s wearing one of her slick, shiny black dresses and a fur coat—not hers. Warmth and excitement light up her face. Her arms enfold me. I confess my desperate need for her acceptance. She knows: That’s what she likes about me. We sit there, trying to hold our embrace, despite the steering wheel, before we move to the back seat. Much better. We hug each other for a long time without speaking. She sends shivers through my body and comforts me at the same time. Our body heat fogs the windows. We’re in our private world.
Mrs. Hipps abruptly slides her gloved hand inside the front of my pants. She tells me she wants a beautiful pair of high-heeled boots. I nod. Squeezing my cock, she starts pumping. She tells me the exclusive ladies shoe store has them. I nod again. She kisses me and pumps me harder and harder until I cum in my pants. Then she tells me to go buy the boots for her.
The store is about to close. The boots, over-the-knee style, cost more than my share of the stolen money. The clerk snickers at my stained pants while I search my pockets. I catch her giggling when I add some of my Christmas shopping money to the two hundred I’ve already put on the counter.
When I get back in the car, Mrs. Hipps commands me to slip her new boots on her. She scrunches up in the corner of the back seat. I slide one foot in and rest her booted foot on my shoulder while I smooth the boot along her ankle, calf, and knee and then zip it up. She pats me on my head, unmistakably putting me in my place. Her haughty attitude fits me comfortably, as if she’s riding my shoulders with her thighs against my neck and cheeks. While I’m slipping Mrs. Hipps’s second boot onto her foot and leg, I notice her unadorned beaver. She says she felt safe taking off her underwear since she unloaded my gun. With both boots fitted snugly, she spreads her lovely legs and offers me a new treat, a special way to show my love for her.
After instructing me briefly, she tells me to come and get it. I lick her vagina, too stunned to know what to make of this novel experience. My eagerness to please her spurs me to explore her crevices thoroughly with my tongue, fearful of displeasing her, and encouraged by her soft moans and the way she jiggles her body. I move gently to her clitoris. Her legs scissor my neck. My anxiety drives me to lap her clit faster, and she snorts and gasps her way to her climax. I keep licking until she finishes.
She pats me on the head, like she’s petting a dog. We return to the front seat and talk while she smokes a few cigarettes. She reminds me that we vowed not to betray each other if one of us gets caught. She tells me I’d better get home and gives me one more deep, wet kiss. The cigarettes on her breath become part of my olfactory memory of Mrs. Hipps—decidedly inferior to her marshmallow and lavender perfume.
Walking me to my car, she wishes we had a camera. She poses for me, anyway, standing on the sidewalk in her slick black dress, kick-ass boots, stolen fur coat, and long, shiny leather gloves. I’ll never be able to eat licorice again without visualizing Mrs. Hipps in her shiny black dress. She cocks her hip in a saucy pose. But her face! Blonde hair and green eyes, served with an arrogant expression, will always be my ideal of beauty.
We get in our cars and go our separate ways.
The next day all hell breaks loose. The women from the party report they’ve been robbed. The police fingerprint the room, the pocketbooks, and the guests. Fortunately, they don’t get many good prints. And mine don’t attract attention since I live there.
But the clerk at the ladies shoe store remembers me after she hears news reports of the theft. My frantic purchase—a large amount of money for a teenager to spend on women’s boots—was simply too conspicuous.
Mom hasn’t said a word about her stolen necklace, but the stolen money grieves her. She advises me to confess.
As if to clinch it, some anonymous tipster advised many of the women to mark their bills before attending the party. No one is sure, but they think Greta Hipps provided that timely, valuable hint. And the police go to the bank where the shoe store deposited its receipts, identify the deposit bag, and find many of the marked bills in the deposit bag.
Of course, Mrs. Hipps has disappeared after cleaning out the joint banking accounts she held with her husband and driving off with all of the valuables she could stuff into the former family van, conveniently registered in her name. The women tut-tut Mrs. Hipps’s domestic behavior but doubt that she robbed them. If she planned to steal their money, would she tell them to mark the bills? And she knows I’ll keep my vow to remain silent because I’m an idealistic—but, more important, infatuated—no, downright sex-crazed—teen. I irrationally entertain the distant hope that she’ll come back and make love to me.
So, I sacrifice myself for Mrs. Hipps. I tell everyone I don’t know where the rest of the money went, but I don’t have it. The judge is lenient since I have no prior arrests. I get “prayer for judgment continued” instead of jail. That means, roughly, You didn’t do it, but don’t do it again. I deplete most of my college savings to pay r
estitution to the women who lost their money and to Mom for a new necklace. I drop out of college for a year to work and replenish my savings account. Maybe the sobering experience made me a better student, but I didn’t have as much fun in college as my friends.
My fiasco creates favorable buzz. Many people in town read between the lines and realize I took the fall for Mrs. Hipps. My buddies call me a sucker but admire my courage. Some of the coeds at my college regard me as a romantic hero—but that brief attention from the opposite sex ends when I have to drop out. My quick fame, or infamy, puffs up my ego.
Until Greta calls one Saturday morning—long distance, collect, of course. She wishes we could have another tryst. But another robbery charge would put me straight in jail. And she refuses to screw me again, double meaning intended, unless I steal for her. So, she gives me another bit of advice that I’ll remember forever:
“Now that I’ve hooked you on kinky sex, you’ll have dirty laundry the rest of your life—things you don’t want to air in public. But don’t worry about your dirty laundry, Kurt. You’ll always find a beautiful woman who’ll take you to the cleaners.”
Click.
Chapter Eighteen
A Brand New Key
Bruiser drove up behind Gretel’s Mercedes soon after Kurt entered Dr. Krafft’s office. Gretel got out of her Mercedes and sequestered herself in the back seat of the Lincoln sedan.
“Have a good night?” she asked him.
He turned to face her squarely, intent on answering her question thoroughly. “I took the trophy to Ms. Bates, like you said. She kissed me. We had a few drinks.”
“Bruiser!”
“Sorry, Ms. Fox. She’s one sexy lady. But we didn’t fool around. I mean, I don’t think we did anything. I passed out and didn’t wake up till half an hour ago.”
“Shouldn’t drink so much.”
“I didn’t. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Ms. Bates slipped me a Mickey.”
“Oh, you’re imagining things. Take me back to my place.”
Bruiser waggled his head loosely. “Still groggy.” Minutes later, they pulled up in front of Gretel’s tan and brown house with the brown fence. “Wait here,” she said. “I plan to stay awhile. You may leave the engine running if you wish to stay warm.”
“Thank you, Boss.”
She turned to leave, but quickly spun around to catch him, squint-eyed, mouthing silently, and bringing his four fingers down to his thumb repeatedly—the universal sign for chatter. “Are you mocking me?” she demanded.
He looked contrite. “Sorry. Sometimes you act like a control freak.”
“It’s not an act,” she said. “I control you. Behave, or you’ll go back to prison.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She felt exhilarated. She would put Bruiser behind bars again, but first she wanted him to be aware of his fate. Stepping inside her house, Gretel walked through her living room to her kitchen. Her mood plummeted. Judd stood by her sink, spooning condensed potato soup into his mouth straight from the Campbell’s can.
“You’re supposed to add water and heat it,” she said.
Judd turned his beady eyes to her. They looked even more sunken in. “Couldn’t wait.” Stooped over, he resembled a raccoon caught raiding a trashcan.
“It’s still morning. How about some breakfast? Bacon and eggs with toast?”
He shook his head, No, and hacked. “Not many foods settle well on my stomach these days. Got any cream of wheat?” He plopped into a chair at the kitchen table.
“No. How about oatmeal? Mom says it’s good for your heart. Or your hard. One time she used it as a lubricant.” Gretel realized Judd was staring at her and felt her cheeks turn warm. “You’d have to know Mom to appreciate that.” She opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a pot.
“You have a pretty behind,” he said.
“Compared to your face,” she smiled. Her green eyes sparkled with teasing, not malice. Filling the pot halfway with water, Gretel turned on a burner knob and placed the pot on that burner. She reached up for the cardboard cylinder, brought it down from a cabinet over the sink, opened it, and poured some oats into the water.
“Shouldn’t you measure it?”
“I did. Once.” She addressed him over her shoulder. “Oatmeal is like a man, only better for you. After the first time I made oatmeal, I’ll always know how. And once I size up a man, he’s mine.” Gretel knew she looked fetching gazing over her left shoulder and held the pose.
But Judd frowned, more in sadness than contention. “People change.”
Gretel hurriedly covered the oatmeal box and put it back on the shelf. Rushing back to Judd, she put her hand on his arm. “I don’t mean to gloat. We’ve had our quarrels, but that’s in the past. In fact, I’ve got good news.”
“Is this one of those car insurance commercials?”
“Judd!” She feigned exasperation. “I’ll tell you about it after I finish making the oatmeal.” She returned to the stove, sprinkled salt out of the shaker into her hand, and tossed it in the oatmeal. She opened the drawer beside the sink and took out a wooden spoon and a silver spoon. She set aside the smaller spoon for Judd and stirred a few strokes with the wooden spoon.
“When I said people change,” Judd persisted, “I wasn’t talking about me.” When Gretel refused to ask the obvious question, he continued. “I was talking about Kurt.”
“Leave him out of this. We’re having such a pleasant visit. Don’t spoil the mood.”
“Wanna know something, Gretel? Secretly, I could get my rocks off watching you shaft people to get your way. Even when you screw me. I feel like I’ve been diddled by the best. Still can’t figure out how you did it.”
“I started to tell you—”
“Let me finish.” He hacked several times, wheezed, and inhaled. “Please.”
She examined him closely. “I should get you to a hospital.”
“Let me get a bellyful of oatmeal, take a nap, and I’ll be fine.”
“Give it another minute or so.” Gretel stirred the pot.
“Anyway, you remind me of Honey Bates. She sees what she wants, and she takes it. She said she wanted to invest in Percy Meeks’s company. That poor sucker never stood a chance. But what if Percy lost his shirt? For a piece of Honey’s ass, it was worth it!”
“She’s my mom.”
Judd cringed. “I meant that in a nice way.” Realizing what he’d said, he threw his head back and laughed. Then he coughed some more. “That’s horseshit. A piece of ass. How could I mean that in a nice way? But I didn’t mean to offend you or your mom.”
“No offense taken.” She turned off the stove, took a bowl from another shelf, and filled it with oatmeal. “Sugar? Brown sugar? Butter? Milk? Raisins?”
Judd declined all of the offers. He looked at her critically when she placed the bowl and spoon in front of him. “Look at your face, your body. You could swindle a miser out of his life’s savings! I know Honey’s proud of you.”
“She is,” Gretel smiled. She sat in the chair beside him.
Judd looked pensive. “My wife and I never had children. Now she’s dead.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She rested her hand on his.
He glanced at Gretel and took a spoonful of oatmeal. “This is good. Thanks.”
“I believe you were talking about kids,” she prodded him.
“Most businesspeople are honest. I firmly believe that. But Kurt is just plain George Washington honest. Goes out of his way to be fair. I’ve seen him give up huge commissions. If he thought somebody would get cheated or the deal just wouldn’t fly, he’d tell both parties it was a no-go.”
Gretel cast her face down.
Judd touched her shoulder lightly. “No reflection on you, honey. You’ve got your own dazzling style: fast and loose. You and Sidney and Honey and—God knows who else—play in a different league. You make up rules on the fly. You screw other people, and sometimes you get screwed. That’s reality. Some bu
sinesspeople operate that way. But, if I had a son, as the old saying goes, I’d want him to be just like Kurt.”
“You do love him. Like a son.”
“Hey, this oatmeal is mushy enough without that kind of talk. I don’t want anything bad to happen to Kurt. That’s all. He deserves better.”
Gretel took Judd’s hands in hers. “You just don’t know what kind of rush I get when I humiliate a man. When you kissed my ass last night, it was beautiful.”
“I said your ass was pretty, not beautiful,” Judd said.
“My ass is beautiful,” Gretel declared. “Your act of submission ranks as one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve ever had. It was spontaneous and real. You impressed me so much I’m willing to forgive all of your gambling debts, if you’ll give me your blessing to bring Kurt down and make him mine.”
Judd kept eating his oatmeal. When he finished, he pushed the bowl aside. “That hit the spot. Thank you.”
“Want some more?”
Judd appeared deep in thought. “How did Honey use oatmeal as a lubricant?”
Gretel laughed. “She gave some New York banker a hand job. I think his name was Frank Prince. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know the details.”
“How did my gambling debts become payable to you?”
“You took out a bunch of loans with Loan Acceptance Income Reserve.”
“Right.”
“If I tell you something, promise not to tell anyone else.”
He rolled his eyes back. “Geez! You mean you own LAIR?!”
“I created LAIR out of several loan companies. Mostly leveraged buyouts. You might say I fashioned a LAIR for my unsuspecting victims.”
“Like me. Why on earth do you fart around with Chimera and BizMart? You’re set for life. Kick back and relax.”
“I’d rather kick ass and reload.”
“You’re something else!”
“As a matter of fact, I have to kick some more ass this afternoon.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
““What about my proposition?”
“Proposition! That’s better than oatmeal!”