by Mercy Walker
I noticed for the very first time that Tom had dramatic swipes of gray hair at his temples.
I turned and walked away. I grabbed my cell phone on my way to the laundry room.
*****
With my first load of laundry in the washer, and a batch of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie dough chilling in the fridge, I sat down with the Yellow Pages and started calling Heating and Cooling repair men. Half an hour later I’d run through the listed repair men, and found there to be a glut of air conditioning malfunctions in the Tempe area, and that even with the clout of dropping the mayor’s name, they wouldn’t be able to come and take a look until that next Tuesday. They blamed this shortage of qualified help on the fact that there was a heat wave going on, and it had been in full swing all week.
Once the list was exhausted, I started calling my female friends, companions, and fellow members of multiple associations. Asking if any of them knew any available heating and cooling professionals she could call upon.
Over and over I heard the same names I’d already run through.
That was until I called Justine Leclaire. She didn’t know of anyone that specialized in that area, but she did know a “jack of all trades, handy man” that worked for a select few women in the area. And above anything else, he seemed able to fix anything.
Justine gave me this handyman’s phone number and I called right away. The voice on the other end of the line was coarse and rough, and it sent a shiver down my back.
“Is this Jake Thorogood? I’m in need of some heating and cooling help.”
“Then I’m your man.”
I felt a tension lift from my shoulders. I was suddenly and inexplicably grateful to him, but I still needed to know he could do the job, and not just waste my time. The two couples that the dinner was planned for in a couple days were big supporter of Tom, socially and financially. She had to have the house cool and spotless in two days. There just wasn’t any room for error.
“What are your qualifications, if I may ask?”
I heard the man take a deep, husky breath—was her taking a drag from a cigarette? And then he said, soto voice, “I’m good with my hands.”
“Excuse me?” I sounded a little breathless as I leaned forward, trying to hear what he said next.
“I’ve been working with my hands, on everything from cars to boat engines, to plumbing, dry wall, and yes, even central air conditioning units. I learned a lot from my father, the rest I’ve picked up from working with every construction crew that would have me.
He sounded confident and competent. And Justine had recommended him highly, so I gave into my desperation and asked when he could come over and give it a look?
“Can’t do it today…I’m all the way out in the east end of Phoenix. But I can be there bright and early tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. good for you?”
I smiled. “Yes, nine is perfect.” I would have my first load of laundry in the wash, and the bed stripped and made. Not that he’d have to see the bed room to fix the air conditioning problem. No, the central air unit was housed in a concealed cubby on the back of the kitchen, right next to the garage.
“I’ll see you then.” and he hung up.
I wiped my hand over my brow and it came back sticky and wet. Tonight would be disgustingly hot in the house. I knew I could weather it. I’d grown up poor and hadn’t had even a window mounted air conditioning unit until after I’d graduated college. It had been my first great expense.
But Tom had come from an upper middle class back ground. I don’t think he’d ever spent a night of his life out of climate controlled conditions.
And this gave me a sudden inspired idea. I’d go to Lowe’s and buy a window mounted air conditioning unit and install it in the bedroom. If he wanted to stay cool, he’d have to stay with me tonight…all night…maybe I’d be able to break our bad streak. Maybe having the central air die on me would be the best thing to happen to me all year.
Chapter Three
Danni
I watched as my best friend and fellow cheerleader, Lana, leaned in and kissed her Über hot captain-of-the-football-team boyfriend—Darby Rhodes. He was hands down the finest looking boy in Hill Crest High School…probably the entire state. But when you paired him with the blond haired, blue eyed Lana Wright, their natural superior looks and preternaturally sexy auras made them both smoking hot babes in any language or zip code.
And unfortunately for me, I found Lana just as delectable as her hunky boyfriend.
To say I was in a confused state of mind would be the understatement of the century. I’d known Lana my entire life…we’d grown up on the same block, and had been BFF’s since our first Barbie Dream House tea and bikini party.
And then a couple years ago I started having these urges…I wanted to lick Trey Kensington’s neck one day while waiting in line for lunch. And later that week I turned red faced embarrassed when I caught myself checking out Mrs. Dowling’s long, svelte legs in English class. She’d had the nicest calves, made even better by the four inch stiletto heels she was wearing…and the creamiest thighs…
It should have been illegal to wear a skirt that provocatively slit up the side to class, even if she was the teacher.
But to my credit, I’ve remained a virgin.
No, I’m not some pathetic, pimply faced home-schooled born again religious type—no purity rings here! And definitely no field hockey knees or craving short hair and power tools.
I just want for my first time to be special. And if I was absolutely honest with myself, I wanted it to be with Lana and Darby.
I felt my face flush, the blood boiling and hot under my skin. I just couldn’t believe, even after a year and a half of wanting it, of fantasizing about it, that I wanted to go all bi-sexual three way my first time out.
Maybe I should just bite the bullet, become the school ho, and do the entire football team, and all the cheerleaders. The guys in the locker room, the girls at a sleep over at my house.
Ohgodohgodohgodohgod!!!
I’m so going to hell!
Nervously I yanked my gaze from the co-objects of my desire, and pulled my champagne blond hair out of the confines of the hair tie I’d lashed it into a ponytail with. I combed my fingers through it and re-did the ponytail…and then I looked over to where Lana and Darby where nearly fornicating…and saw Lana staring back at me.
Fuck…
I tried to look away, but I was caught, and by the slow, sensual way Lana was smiling at me, I was pretty sure she knew exactly what I’d been thinking.
Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, fuck!
I wanted to die.
Panic stricken, I raked my mind for a way out off this. There was no way Lana could actually know what I was thinking. If anything, she might think I was scoping out her boyfriend. Which was technically true, and would be grounds for her to bitch slap me and publish the news that I was a big slut throughout the school.
Then again, Lana was well known for being able to guess people’s deepest and darkest secrets. She just had a gift…a gift straight from the devil.
I shook this off and scratched at the insides of my skull like a demented jungle cat, desperate to escape the prison of my mind. Maybe I could fake the flue, getting my period…anything to be able to go home.
When I looked up again, Lana was walking towards me, swinging her luscious hips as if she had her own soundtrack.
I tried to speak but nothing came out. I cleared my throat and suddenly my voice came out all too loudly.
“What’s up, Lana?” I cringed at how booming my voice was.
Lana, as usual, didn’t even notice my vocal problems. She leaned down, her hands on either side of my desk, a lazy smile on her Lip Smacker lacquered lips.
I felt the bottom of my stomach give out. She knew!
I gulped and leaned back in my chair a little. Play it cool, girl. Be frosty…
Lana slid her hand out toward me and crumpled a folded piece of paper in my hand, winked and then st
ood back up and sashayed back over to her hot-as-hell boyfriend.
I looked down and unfolded the paper. The note was in her loopy, girlie cursive, and she had penned a few pretty hearts with arrows skewered through their centers.
The note read:
My room, Friday night at midnight. Fire Man route, per usual.
Shiiiit…
When I looked up again, Lana and Darby were arm in arm, walking toward the out-building. Darby was probably going to work out—as if he needed it!—while Lana whipped the cheer squad into shape.
With a jolt I realized I needed to get my rump in gear, and get my ass to practice.
Maybe I could cajole the meaning of the letter out of Lana during practice.
Chapter Four
Lila
It was working like a charm. The rest of the house was a humid, nasty miasma of stale air and cloying air fresheners that were perfectly harmless in a well ventilate home, but were overpowering to nausea now.
And then there was the bedroom, cool—even the scents were cool and calming, vanilla with a hint of jasmine and lavender—crisp, and inviting. It was cold enough that my nipples were hard. This fact I played to great advantage through the blood red negligee I’d bought at Victoria’s Secret earlier that afternoon, right after I’d purchased the quietest, most powerful window mounted air conditioner I could find. Luckily, I didn’t have to lug the damned thing up the stairs and mount it in the bedroom myself. It was part and parcel with the extended warrantee I’d picked up on it.
I fidgeted with my hair and makeup while I waited for Tom to come up to say goodnight. He may not have touched me romantically in six months, but he still cared enough to come up and say goodnight. Ever the civil gentleman.
Now don’t get me wrong, we sleep in the same room, in the same bed. But he simply will not come to bed until it’s so late I’m usually asleep.
And to my detriment, I have never, not once, initiated sex. Not once in your twenty year marriage. I just always thought it was below a wife to force the issue. And until lately, I’d gotten enough in that department to make me feel not so neglected.
But six months…
Tonight was going to be the first of many nights—I’d decided—that I was going to take what I wanted from my husband.
And he was going to like it!
I hoped…
I heard the bedroom door open, so I came out of my walk-in closet, and stood seductively in the threshold, one hand on my hip, the other raised and languishing on the woodwork of the doorframe.
Tom was bent over his nightstand, retrieving some notes he must have scribbled sometime during the night.
“It’s late Tom,” I purred, arching my back like they’d told us in Cosmo. “Why don’t you come to bed? It’s nice and cool in here.” I let my voice drip with innuendo.
Tom turned around, absently reading through the notes in his hand. “Yeah, I noticed how…”
And then he looked up at me. His eyes went wide, and his mouth went slack—all good signs.
I pouted my lips, with their blood red lipstick—that matched the negligee…they had both come from Victoria’s secret.
And then that dumbfounded look on Tom’s face turned to downright stricken. He shook his head no, as if I’d asked if he wanted to become an organ donor while he was still living and breathing. At the same time he started like a shot for the bedroom door.
“I’ve got a lot…a lot of city business to get caught up on. Don’t wait up for me.”
I didn’t watch him leave. I didn’t have to. He silently opened, passed out through, and closed the bedroom door behind him. I stood there with my eyes closed tight, trying to push back the tears that were pooling, hot and hateful, in my eyes. I was also trying to will myself to breathe again.
I pushed it all back down deep inside—I was, after all, a master at doing this. It was what I’d been doing for nearly a decade. What was another night?
I waited for all those pathetic feelings to get locked back inside my soul, waited for the mental storm clouds to pass, and for my still, peaceful center to return. This was where I lived: peace and quiet…and order. I swiped what was left of my tears from my eyes, changed out of my ridiculous Victoria’s Secret getup, and pulled on one of my usual sleeping gowns—ala JC Penny.
Then I thoroughly washed my face, brushed out my hair, and stood staring at my lonely, cold bed.
I tip toed out of my bedroom and down the hall, to the last door on the other side of the hall. It was a little girl’s bedroom that faced out the back of the house. There was a small canopy bed, a dresser, a miniature vanity, and tiny unicorn statues stationed with their horns up on metal racks that I’d spray painted to match her walls perfectly.
The room was exactly as Emily had left it ten years earlier. How she had clung to her little girl ways, even though her other friends had moved on to more “grownup” things.
The room was spotless, just as the rest of my house was. But it had taken nearly three years before I could even walk into the room. And I’d forbidden anyone to touch anything in it. I would stand there and take in the scent of her, and try to forget that she was gone…and would never, ever come back.
Tom and I had had a silent understanding when Emily had died. We would never try to have another child again. It nearly killed us both when Emily had died.
But in less than five years Emily’s scent was gone, and no amount of quarantine would bring even that back.
It’s not like the people who brought us “New Car Scent” could invent “Dead Daughter.”
So I’d started cleaning the room, washing the linens once a month, and keeping the room just as she’d liked it. As if she was going to come home any day from some summer camp.
I slowly lay down on her little bed. I’d never done this, so it felt so wrong. But I couldn’t stay this night in my lonely bed. I needed company, even if it was only the ghost of my dead daughter.
Chapter Five
Marcus
Everyone was asleep. The night beckoned, the wind smooth and hot, the sound of cicadas as much part of the wind as the scent of pine, or the sound of forever. I stood at the backdoor, staring out over the backyard. I could hear the neighbor’s pool filter, and the gentle waves it perpetually caused to ripple across its glistening surface.
Water was my second home—I’d been all state, and was now swimming for my college team: The University of Arizona, Tucson. And I’d won every meet this year.
But now I was home for the summer, and my parents and kid sister where all snug in their beds.
Me?
I was looking over towards my neighbor’s fence line. It was a tall privacy fence, but I’d been scaling over it for five years now. I just couldn’t resist the water…the smell of chlorine, the sound the water made as it lapped at the sides of my neighbor’s enormous in-ground swimming pool.
But six months ago I’d gotten an even better reason to climb the fence. And though I’d been away for nearly three months, I knew I wasn’t the only person awake at this time of night.
I peeled off my t-shirt and kicked off my sandals. Before I knew it I was up and over the fence, and sliding soundlessly into the warm, soothing water. My muscles came alive as I glided effortlessly across the pool and then climbed out the other side. I felt strong and absurdly graceful as I padded barefoot and dripping wet to my neighbor’s backdoor.
I stood there for a few heartbeats and watched him. I could feel my heart pound harder just looking at him, and my cock stiffened with every breath I took. I reached out and drummed my fingers against the panes of glass that separated us.
Tom looked up from the laptop computer he was busily typing on. His eyes went wide, and his mouth slack—I loved that look on him. And then he smiled, saying my name—I could read his lips as he pronounced “Marcus.”
He might be the only person on the face of the planet that calls me by my full, grown up name.
The Wilkes Boy, that’s what everyone calls me, or
have ever called me.
My father had been a small town football star in high school, and then went to college on a full scholarship and became an even bigger star there. Luckily he never went pro—a permanent knee injury had seen to that. Otherwise, the entire nation might be calling me The Wilkes Boy.
My fucking name is Marcus.
But my friends call me Marc, or Wilkes…and my parents—though I suspect my father, brawny Jim fucking Wilkes, might think of me that way in his head—call me Marc too.
The only grown up who ever called me by my full name, and not Jim’s boy, or the aforementioned TWB, was the man I was staring at right now.
Tom Sherwood, lawyer, mayor of Tempe, and once upon a time, a father. I’d known his daughter Emily. We had been the same age, and I’d played hide and seek more times than I could count with her.
And I remembered how she’d looked as she got sicker and sicker…I’d even seen her peering out at me from her bedroom window the day she’d died. She’d looked so frail, as if she would shatter if you touched her.
So I had this overwhelming sympathy for Tom Sherwood.
But later, when I was in high school, I’d see him working out at the YMCA, and just looking at him made my heart race—it was like a cardio work out all by itself. I’d wait, working out and talking to him, until he’d finish and I’d follow him back to the showers. I’d watch him strip down naked, and I’d shower beside him, asking innocuous questions about his work, his work outs, obscure legal shit I’d read on the internet.
Anything to have a reason to watch him shower and be near him.
And then one day last year, conveniently right after my eighteenth birthday, I walked into the showers at the Y and found myself utterly alone with a wet, soapy, sexy as hell Tom Sherwood. And as he turned toward me, he was hard as a brick.
That piece of meat between his legs was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid my eyes on—and though I’ve had a few guys while I was away at the University of Arizona—most of them my own swim team mates—he is still the biggest cock, and the best sex I’ve ever had.