by KT Morrison
She adjusted her jacket as she clicked her heels across the asphalt, she straightened her skirt. She had caught their eyes now, saw that glint that men got when she walked a certain way. His head turned to watch her come, he said something to the one in the polo shirt and he walked off, also looking her up and down.
A smile peeled her lips back as Rocco took her in walking those last twenty feet, feeling very conscious of herself but also really loving it too. She felt like she was back. From where she didn’t know, but boy, it felt nice to be looked at on a bright sunny day. He smiled knowingly as she came to a stop in front of him and she held her hands out to the side and said, “Ta-daa.”
Rocco nodded, looking very confident, his eyes narrowed and went up and down her body. “Holy shit. Nia Giannoppoulos. I remember you so good. Fuck, look at you—I’m not lying, I swear you look exactly the same last time I saw you.” His voice was deep and guttural.
She said, “Well, it’s been a long while, so, thank you.”
“Holy shit, step back. Look at you.” His eyes went all over her again and they sparkled, like he was enjoying what he saw. She turned for him, knew she should be offended, but here she was, submitting, showing him her body because he asked.
She stopped herself, said, “You don’t look the same. At all.”
He smirked and nodded. “I grew.”
“You did. How tall are you?”
“Six-five. Three-ten.”
“Not quite the little brother any more…”
“Chubby little brother, you mean.”
“No…”
He ran a huge, thick-fingered hand over his stomach in a half circle, said, “I still carry a little—”
Then he squat right down low and wrapped his enormous tattooed arms around her thighs just below her ass and he stood up with her like she was absolutely weightless. He hugged her to him and she had to put her hands on his shoulders to support herself. His traps were like stone. A girlish laugh was squeezed out of her and it surprised her.
“—but I’d still crush Dino if he said shit about it—I’m mostly muscle…”
Her eyes locked with his and she felt them draw her in. His eyes were dark, almost black, like hers. She said, “D-Dino was the one said you need somebody.”
He kept his eyes on hers, said, “How the fuck he ever let you go?”
“His loss,” she said and ran a lock of her hair behind her ear.
He said, “His loss.” He held her eyes one uncomfortable second too long—then he set her down and he was walking, waiting for her to catch up.
She wobbled a bit on her heels, reached to pull her skirt down, then trotted to catch up with him. She said, “Dino said you have three kids. How do you have three kids already? You’re younger than me.”
“How do you not have three kids already? You married me I’d pump that body so full of fuckin babies your fuckin head would spin.”
She giggled, said, “I married a white boy.”
“Ah, ah-hah, a mangia-cake? Okay. I see.” A skinny guy with dusty black jeans and a Dragon Pools ball cap was walking near and Rocco shouted to him, “Hey, you tell fuckin Godfrey to get his dumb ass over to Steeles and grab that fuckin Bobcat and get it on to Markham for tomorrow. I saw it sitting there driving in, he shoulda moved it yesterday, I fuckin told him.” The skinny guy gulped and nodded effusively and scurried off.
“Hey. Your folks are doing well? Dino said your dad is loving retirement.”
Rocco walked with purpose, taking her back towards the building. It was a low plaza with a brown metal roof and beige brick walls. The front was all glass-front retail space, where they sold pool supplies and hot tubs.
“Yeah, you know...he doesn’t know what to do with himself most days. Ends up here.”
“Helping out?”
He looked at her over his shoulder and gave her a knowing smile and rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”
Dino and Rocco’s dad had started the business and had run it up til about five years ago. Rocco never went to University, stayed and helped with the family business. Dino told her, that night at Square, that Rocco had completely taken over about five years back and the business went bonkers. Dino said he’d added haulage and aggregates and branched out the construction side to include all sorts of landscaping projects that weren’t always pool related. Dino said he’d doubled the income in a few years.
They stopped at the back of the building, stood in front of a brown metal door. He put his hands on his hips, the muscles in his arms bulging and flexing. His tattoos snaked around his arms, black dragons twisting and writhing from his shoulders down to his thick wrists. His gold wedding band winked in the cold spring sunlight
“We got eight teams of two, they do openings now, this time of year...those same guys do maintenance contracts in the summer, they float around though, I pull em for construction when I need them. They do overtime sometimes. I got four crews of four, full-time construction...retail, hauling, aggregates, listen, I ain’t gonna lie, it gets hectic here sometimes. We got eight months to make real money, you know?”
“It does sound hectic. You need somebody keep it all organized for you.”
“That’s right. We have to move fast, then we generate so much fuckin paperwork and the goddamn government...”
“I can handle all that for you.”
“Dino said you did business at York.”
“I have a BBA with a specialization in accounting. But I’m not CPA.”
He nodded, looked out over the work yard, said, “You’re over-qualified for this job. But it pays well.”
“I’ve been out of the workforce for eight years and eight years ago I was hardly in it anyway.”
“It’s not really just bookkeeping. You okay with that?”
“Sure.”
“It’s bookkeeping, it’s secretary, it’s assistant...it’s go-go-go, for, like, eight months. We do have fun, don’t get me wrong. You’ll be with me, every day, sometimes it gets hot around here. I yell a lot.”
“Yell at me?” she laughed.
“Don’t fuck up and I won’t,” he said, not smiling and he looked down at her seriously.
She held his gaze, said, “I don’t fuck up.”
“Dino always said you were smart.”
“I am.”
He kept looking at her, looking her in the eye, and up and down her body too. “You remember the last time I saw you?”
“Probably. When?”
“Party at our house. You were with Dino. Late at night. I was on the couch.”
She blushed, winced, said, “That was the last time?”
He smiled again, he had a nice smile, he held the metal door open for her and gestured into the building. “C’mon into my office.”
GEOFF
The meeting with Jenny went well, like he thought it would. He had a grasp on the trains they wanted and the success of the first book made them really pander to him this time around, which he was unaccustomed to but he was starting to like. She liked what he had so far, of course. It was more of the same, just some funnier situations and he was on track. Sort of a waste of a half-day but Jenny had to justify her job and he didn’t mind since they were paying so well this time around. Jenny had to come up with something, she couldn’t just let him go without some input—he was okay with that, knew the job as an editor came with its stresses. She told him he should ‘brighten up’ a few of the faces on the trains. They were bright but if she wanted the corners of their mouths turned up a fraction of an inch more he could do it without any bother.
He checked his watch for the fifteenth time. No Nia. He was starting to wonder if he should just text her that he’d subway it home. She hadn’t responded to his previous texts yet, but he could let her know she didn’t need to come right into the city. They could do lunch together another time.
How would it be to have her out of the house during the days—out in the workforce again? He’d got used to having her around all the time, helping out wi
th his administrative stuff, running an errand for him, sitting with him, helping, or just puttering around the house while he was in the studio. It would be so weird now for her to be away from him during the day, off having her own experiences, living a life with other people, her life entwined with the lives of strangers. It made him feel weirdly possessive, like he maybe secretly wanted her locked up and kept in the house where she was his and his alone. But he was never really like that—that was something base and primal, afraid. He wasn’t afraid and he wanted her to do whatever would please her. And there was that tickle again: that strange little feeling that made his heart pump a few beats stronger than the others. The idea that she would be engaged with other men, that her value would be seen and measured by them, that her feminine wiles would come once again to the surface and she would flirt and her eyes would dance and she would smile and feel alive. Men would make advances. How could they not? She was stunning and sexy. He wanted that for her, he really did. There was something about it that brought a maleness from his core and his testosterone licked at the underside of his skin. The dark notion of his mate being enjoyed by another man challenged him in some way, made him alive and angry and wide-eyed. Prepared, viable, looking to be better. Looking to keep her. And there was a value he felt when her attractiveness was enjoyed by other men, like his measurement as a man was in some way increased by the incredible and obvious value of his Nia.
Right now, sitting on a planter at the edge of a busy King Street in the middle of a bright, spring Toronto day he could feel himself so different than the man he was last week. He was awake. Alive. His heart pounded, his fingers tingled with worry. Where was she? What was she doing? Why wasn’t she responding to his texts? Who was Rocco?
This guy was an unknown to him, but his Nia knew him. She was joking—but she said he was handsome. Probably not really joking, though. A brief horrible flash came to him—a man in his office chair, pants undone, legs parted, his Nia on her knees between them, her head bobbing on his cock, wanting that job. A horrible vision, one that would anger a normal man. Somehow, while angry, he also felt an intense arousal by it. A sudden, and real, undeniable swelling in his Jockeys. Brief but pronounced. He pushed it away, afraid of it.
What would arouse him by being an outsider in his wife’s sex life? What would make a man want to be on the sidelines and watch another man take his wife, give her pleasure and make her face twist, make her gasp and moan?
His relationship with Nia was forged that way, that was how he came to know her. He was her friend and confidante. He got to learn what she liked a man to do and what she liked for him not to do. He knew what she was really like—she would tell him—and maybe deep down he always thought he wasn’t enough for her. Still wasn’t enough for her. She was of a higher sexual caliber than him. His bullets didn’t fit in her magazine. She had been with men, like, gorilla-men. Big, ultra-masculine studs. That was what she used to pull. And he got it, he guessed. If you were a girl wouldn’t that be what you sought? Did she ever long for men like that? His difference to them was pronounced. Did she ever wish, every once in a while, to just throw down and go toe-to-toe with the kind of man she was used to?
A double-honk.
He shook his head, shook himself out of that rabbit hole he’d tumbled down. It was Nia.
The silver Volvo, the shape of his wife in the driver seat, her crazy black hair, her long bright hands on the steering wheel, her wedding ring. And then all those sexy thoughts gone, replaced by irritation. Her leaving him to sit in the cold and wait for her while she did her new things. Was this what it was going to be like? It better not be.
He walked over with his art bag, not smiling, got into the car, dumped himself into the passenger seat. “Why wouldn’t you just text me back? I could have been home already, I was sitting out there for—”
“Oh, it went great, Geoff, thanks for asking.”
“Fuck. It’s just that it’s cold out there, you know?”
“You could have waited in the building, Geoff...”
“So it went well?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
He nodded and humphed.
She drove in silence for a while, heading out of the city. He watched out the window, shaking his head. This was going to be a big change and as exciting as it was and despite all the fun he was having with some dirty thoughts, he didn’t like it now. This was real.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“Home,” she said.
“I thought we were going out for lunch.”
“I’ll just make something at home. Why are you in such a mood?”
“You left me out there.”
“So?”
“You didn’t respond to my texts.”
“I was driving.”
He let it go again. Watched people on the street, admired their apparent happiness while they inched through traffic headed back home when he’d been looking forward to getting lunch out.
“I’m really going to miss you.”
“I know, Geoff.”
“You spend all day with me. Every day. Now you’re going to be out.”
“It’s big, Geoff, I know.”
He shook his head, feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly sad. He looked at her finally, her sexy profile while she watched the road. She was too good for him. It was nice when she was locked up and home. If she was out of the house she could be taken, she could be lost to him. “I’m sorry. I’m just...I guess I’m sad.”
She nodded, kept her eyes on the road, flashed a look over at him quickly and he could see her eyes were wet too. She had to be a bit scared. At home for eight years, now out and back at it. It had to be hard for her too. He leaned over and kissed the shoulder of her jacket and squeezed her arm.
He said, “Who’s going to do my website, respond to fanmail? Who’s going to make me a sandwich and rub my neck?”
She said, “You really want me to stay and do those things?”
“No. I’m really going to miss you though, I mean it. It’s going to make me crazy.”
“You can get an assistant.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s really good money, Geoff.”
“Really?”
“Almost as much as you made last year. No, sorry, two years ago.”
“Shit. Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. That is good news.”
They were pulling on to Garden Street, heading to the alley to park at their garage. He said, “We can walk down to the bakery together, get a sandwich, we—”
“We need to talk, Geoff.”
“Yeah?”
He felt his hands go cold and he looked to her. Something in her tone. She was serious. This wasn’t simple. “Baby, what is it?”
“Let’s get in the house,” she said as she pulled off the edge of the alley and nosed the Volvo up against the wall of his studio.
“Nia, seriously. What is it? Is something wrong?”
She didn’t answer him, she didn’t even look at him. She got out of the car and left him with her beautiful perfume, he couldn’t even see her face, her black hair swinging to block it. What the fuck?
He got out, left his stuff in the car and he followed her up the walk between his garage-studio and the wall of the house. She walked up the stairs and he called up after her, “Nia.”
“Inside, Geoff,” she said out to the air, not turning around. He watched her fiddle with her key in the lock. She looked so different, all made up during the day, her professional outfit on, her long sexy legs, standing in heels at the door to their home.
“Nia, please, talk to me.”
She got the door open and she walked through, left it open behind her for him to follow.
“Nia,” he said. She kept walking, heels clicking over the linoleum in the kitchen and then out through the wood of the family room. She was going upstairs. His heart pounded. She was serious, this was something big.
“Nia, come on,” he said and h
e ran through to catch up to her, trotting up the stairs behind her. Her steps went quicker too, she seemed a little upset. When they got to the bedroom she went in and looked out the window, kept her back to him.
“Nia, please. What is it? You’re killing me.”
She turned finally and she still hid her face from him, kept it tucked in her black hair. She leaned forward, fell back against the window ledge and she clutched her beautiful hands to her thin knees.
“Oh fuck, Geoff. I made a big mistake,” she said down to the maple parquet.
“Nia? What?”
She looked up and he saw her eyes wide and scared. Her chin trembled. She took her jacket off, quickly shook herself out of it. She unbuttoned her shirt, she looked to him, she whispered nervously, “Geoff, please...fuck me.”
“Nia,” he said, hearing the fear in his voice, hearing the edge of panic tighten its grip on the weak sound coming from him. “Nia?”
“Just fuck me, okay, baby, please?” she was pushing her skirt and panties down.
“What is it, Nia? What happened?”
She was in just her bra, bare foot, she crossed the room to him and buried her face in his chest, he could feel her trembling. She unbuttoned his shirt and opened it.
“Geoff, just fuck me,” she said into his shoulder as her hands worked his pants open.
She shoved them down and his cock strained against the front of his white Jockey briefs. She pulled him to bed and he stumbled along with her, his shoes on, his pants bunched up around his ankles.
“Jesus, Nia, what the fuck is going on?”
“Geoff,” she whimpered and she pulled him down on top of her, wrapped her legs around his waist. Her thumbs hooked into the sides of his waistband and she forced his underpants down enough that his cock sprang free and slipped right along her mound. He could feel her heat, feel her wet and slippery.
“Did something happen, Nia?” he whispered, so afraid of the answer.
She nodded into his chest. Her hand gripped his cock and she pointed it into her silky folds and he thought for a moment of pulling back, and shaking her, shaking the truth out of her. “I was bad,” she whispered as he plunged himself inside her.