The Hobby Job: A Romantic Wife-Watching Novel

by Arnica Butler

  The seat shot back and she laughed again as it slammed at the end of the track.

  She was serious.

  She pulled on her dress, fully exposing her thighs. She looked great. Her legs were in taut, athletic shape. The material of her dress slid all the way to her waist, where it bunched up just above her panties. Black. Lace.

  I reached out and stroked her inner thigh. She had shaved her legs in the tub, apparently, and they were silky-smooth. It felt so good to touch her again, like this. With excitement. I put a hand on the collar of her dress, and traced its very low cut along her bared shoulders, over the swell of her breasts. I was satisfied when her breathing was arrested for a moment, and she started to flush.

  Thoughts from the evening rose up, unbidden. Flashes of Laura, looking sexy and pretty, almost like another man's wife, filled my head. Her hand on Mac's arm, her fingers doing a little dance on them. Laura tossing her hair and batting her eyelashes for another man.

  The desires I kept submerged most of the time overtook me in a rush. I climbed over the seat, and I did in a way that surprised me: hungry, with the ease of youth. I pulled on the lever to lean Laura's seat back, and she whopped as it slammed down with our dual weight.

  But I was beyond having “fun;” my mind was being carpet-bombed by image after image of Laura. Laura in reality, flirting at he bar. Laura in my fantasies, sucking on another man's cock.

  Laura placed a finger on her lip and stroked it. I pushed my fingers into her panties, past her neatly-trimmed bush (also a product of her long bath,) and found her slit. It was hot, and she was delightfully wet.

  I indulged the thought: wet because she was flirting with another man.

  Laura gasped as I passed over her engorged clit. She really was fired up, ready to go. It felt like a long, long time ago, when sex was a matter of urgency and need, not the chore it had lately become.

  She had her hands on my belt buckle and was ripping away at it. When she got me free, she grasped my cock.

  I allowed myself another indulgence: I imagined Laura picturing another cock. Comparing mine to another lover's. Wishing the shape of it was different, or the size.

  Laura smiled as she stroked me. I guessed she was excited to find me as ready as she was.

  I pushed her panties down, and held them as she steered my to her wet, ready opening. Her hot flesh enclosed me and I closed my eyes to steady myself.

  My thoughts about Laura with another man had put me dangerously, dangerously close to the edge. But Laura moved underneath me, grinding herself against me, and her mouth opened slightly. She was also close. She moaned lightly and lifted her hips from the seat to slide up and down my cock.

  To my delight, she closed her eyes.

  Thinking about another man, my imagination prodded.

  She opened her eyes, and looked right at me, as her muscles clenched my cock and her pussy seemed to turn to juice.

  And then my mind let another image rise up inside of it: Laura just like this, her mouth open, and her eyes open.

  But for another man. Another man on top of her, pounding her…

  I buried my cock inside of her, but as her wet flesh throbbed around me I was thinking more about her being stretched open by another man than about my own cock inside of her. We both yelled as I slammed into her hard at the end, burying my seed deep inside of her.

  Thinking, though, about her cunt filling up with another man's white cum.

  Laura started laughing first, into my shoulder.

  “What was that?” I said. It was a real struggle to get back into the driver's seat. I looked behind me and around the field as I buckles myself up. Laura was still amused, which had the effect of being disconcerting and heartening. This Laura, laughing in the passenger seat of a car after having sex in a field, was much more like the woman I had married.

  But still. We were in our late thirties, and after the heat wore off from the sex, the whole thing seemed almost childish.

  Laura removed a facecloth from her purse and leaned forward, after snapping the seat upright, to wipe her footprint off the humid windshield.

  That was more like Laura.

  But she was wiping a tear of laughter from her eye.

  That was more like Laura ten years ago.

  She looked at me, still smiling, and her voice was only comically urgent. “Con. Get us out of here before we get arrested.”

  It looked like my plan, so far, was a good one.

  A SHIFT

  LAURA

  The Pied Piper was not a pretty place in the backroom in the morning. The back room was lit up to its detriment by the daylight. The paint and tables were chipped and the carpet was a sea of concentric stains. It smelled of stale beer and, somehow, cigarettes.

  Something about it, nonetheless, was appealing to me. The same thing I had liked about the night before. The near-trashiness of it offered so many possibilities for actually doing some kind of story, which would doubtlessly never get accepted but at least give me something to do.

  Lorraine, the owner, was clearly not Scottish and seemed better suited to running a jerk chicken shop. She had agreed to interview me, without really telling me whether she had a job open or not.

  She was looking up from a list of questions. Her voice was bored, and I could see she wasn't listening to the answers.

  “Describe how you would up-sell a menu item,” she droned.

  I smiled. The only way to up-sell the Pied Piper was to recommend the patrons get in their car and drive to another restaurant. People were obviously here for the weird bands, enormous beers, haggis, and the heavy-handed bartenders.

  “Look,” I sighed. I remembered, suddenly, that I could take or leave this job. I decided to just lay it on the table. “The truth is, I just want four or five hours out of the house. I don't even care if I make that much money. But I paid my way through school waiting tables, I don't do drugs, my husband makes good money so I have no reason to steal, and I don't really care if you cut me most nights. You have one night a week I can do that?”

  At first, it wasn't clear how this went over. Lorraine squinted, and then her huge body began to shake from the center of her torso outward. The laughter reached her face last, as if it had to crack through the cemented frown she had been wearing during the entire “interview.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Lord, you have no idea how long I have been waiting to hear somebody say that. 'I don't do drugs...'I don't care if I get cut...' You know how many people I have stealing to buy drugs they do here at work and then complain at me, I cut them too early, meanwhile they so stoned they set that deep fat frier on fire while they -”

  Lorraine pounded her chest and wheezed to emphasize how amusing this next bit was:

  “While they smokin' over it?”

  Then, suddenly: “You can have Thursdays. You ready this week?”

  “Uh,” I said. I hadn't honestly expected my tirade to work. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Gotta have a sexy shirt. You got anything a little more...you know. Tight? Black.” She waved at me with a pencil. “Better tips.”

  Sure. I thought. I know the game.

  And so began my job at The Pied Piper.

  In college, I'd paid most of my bills working in a restaurant as a waitress. I always said it really sucked.

  But the Pied Piper wasn't anything like my old job. For one, I didn't need it. For two, I was looking forward to all the quirky characters as fodder for writing.

  I wasn't there more than fifteen minutes, though, before all the plans for the Pied Piper turned to smoke. In a way.

  I mean, everything just shifted, in a single moment.

  “You the new girl?”

  The voice was distinctly young, almost adolescent. I turned around and was face-to-face with a lanky, dark-haired boy with curly hair and cold blue eyes. A young twenty-something.

  I will admit it. He was also hot. A really good-looking guy. All of the things I used to like in guys.

  And then, a r
eally frightening, delicious, horrible feeling spread through me from the center of my chest:

  Oh god. He was giving me the eye.

  I folded my arms over my chest and leaned against the counter, the way this crotchety old bitch named Nancy used to do when I worked at Tyson's Pit Barbeque Joint. Nancy was the woman I always admired most for not taking any kind of shit from anyone.

  I'm sure my imitation of her was missing something, because he just kept looking at me the way he did.

  “I'm the new server,” I said. I think the intention was to emphasize to him that I was not a girl.

  Even while I was doing this, I couldn't help but catch his flat chest against his faded black t-shirt, and his arms, solid and toned.

  And I couldn't help it. I felt a little flutter inside of me.

  I actually had to force my eyes not to go any further down.

  Jesus. What the hell was wrong with me? For a second I almost felt like I was back in college, working at Tyson's, flirting with the bartenders, going out for drinks during lunch break, coming back and waiting on tables half-drunk in the lazy summer afternoons. The feeling swamped me with nostalgia. I felt queasy. Excited.

  My “Nancy Impression” was amusing to the guy – the kid – and he smiled at me almost affectionately. “You're the lady who wants to get out of the house,” he said, nodding. He had a flat salad bowl in his hand, and he palmed it and turned it upside down over the trash without taking his eyes off me. The wiry strength in his hand, holding the salad bowl with such ease, sent a liquid pulse through me. And not in a very virtuous place.

  What the fuck, Laura?

  “So you came here.” He waved around the kitchen of The Pied Piper, as though he were showing off a palace. A leaking pipe let a fat drop of water splash on a dirt-encrusted painter's bucket, as though on cue.

  A cook in the prep area chuckled and began to stir a vat of sauce.

  I raised my eyebrows. Keep it together. “News travels fast in a restaurant,” I said lamely.

  “Lotsa things do,” he said.

  I was utterly unnerved by the effect this kid was having on me. I felt sure he was making some kind of sexual innuendo, but my mind couldn't keep up with it. Instead, it was on his trim, youthful chest under his shirt. His dark, unruly hair. His hands, palming the salad bowl with an easy strength. The way he moved with so much energy underneath his skin.

  I mean, seriously.

  Before I could think of anything witty to say, he backed up and shuffled to the dishwasher. “I'm Nate,” he said. He gave a spin, and went out the door before I could say anything. But I did let my eyes drift down to his jeans, where his ass was very neatly tucked away beneath his hip, faded denim.

  Did I just actually do that?

  “Jesus. Laura. Get a grip,” I said, under my breath, and then cast a glance at the dishwasher to see if he heard me. He was spraying dishes and humming a foreign-sounding song, so I was probably safe.

  I blinked. Was I actually feeling an...ache? Between my legs? From watching a guy palm a salad bowl?

  I reminded myself that I was almost two decades older than “Nate,” technically old enough to be a mother to most of the staff who worked here.

  This job was for fun, for possible journalistic purposes, and because I was going crazy at home.

  I was thirty-eight, not twenty.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head.

  I needed to get to work.

  But my heart was beating faster, and my arteries were filled with excitement.

  There was no denying that.

  I got right back into the groove of being a waitress. I was a better waitress now that I'd juggled two kids and real, high-pressure jobs. Nate got under pressure and I helped him out with one of his tables. He was impressed, as was I, by my long-retained ability to hold three water glasses upright in the palm of one hand. Pretty soon the jokes were flying, and I found myself standing around in the circle of smokers outside in the back, “hanging out.”

  I quit smoking when I quit waiting tables. Now the scent of the cigarettes was rising up in my nostrils and beckoning me for the first time in decades.

  I wasn't going to smoke. Jesus, that was stupid.

  But the open door, the laughter, the sight of Nate's casual stance, one foot up against a low cement wall – something about it was calling to me.

  I walked out the door. It was dead in the dining room and someone would call if we were needed. I'd finished my most of my sidework hours ago and cleaned out the pantry for something to do.

  I put my hands in my apron to show them I wasn't there to smoke, and they gave me the cool-kid head jerk of the head in response.

  “You meet the new girl?” Nate said, to another twenty-something wearing the white apron of the cooks. He was sitting on the wall, elbows on knees. I stamped down on the quickening of my pulse. Another young guy, busting with energy, tapping his foot on the ground. His arm was covered in tattoos.

  “New lady,” I corrected, lifting my hands without taking them out of my apron to wave. I could see the two of them found it funny, and I felt a warm, flirty sensation spread over me. It had been such a long time since I had been around any real male energy – everyone we knew was married, or just older, more tired. The guys were giving me smiles of appreciation.

  The cook blew smoke from his mouth without removing his cigarette from between his lips. “Don't you have a real job or something? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  I don't know what happened in this moment, or why that particular comment made me feel this way. I just know that all the sudden it was like I was back in college. Smoking outside, free from any real worries, about to stay out late until three in the morning and meet new people, flirt with new guys. Nate and the cook were young, burning with testosterone – you could actually see it sort of glowing off of them, that vibrancy. I reached out to Nate, in that casual way that smokers do, but intimate smokers, friends, and he moved his hand without saying anything to give me a drag.

  “Just want to have a smoke in some fucking peace and quiet,” I said, before I put the cigarette to my lips. I admit to knowing what I was doing as I did it. Batting my lashes a little. The gestures felt old, rusty, but still familiar. It had been a long time since I'd stood around by a trash can and...well, relaxed. The joke made them laugh.

  The smoke curled up inside of my mouth. Instead of burning it went down like a smooth drink. Fuck, I thought. So many years of not smoking and the truth was it was fucking great.

  The reasonable mom in me was already rising up in the back of my mind and having a level-headed conversation with the Laura who had taken over my body. You will not have another one of those, ever. Don't even think about it.

  I handed the cigarette back to Nate. “Fuck that's great,” I heard myself saying. I could almost see myself now, through their eyes. Lifting my chin, blowing the smoke out of my mouth. An older woman. Still sort of hot. Interesting. Mysteriously working at the Pied Piper.

  “Lorraine says you got kids. Is that true?” The cook, who had still not introduced himself, asked me.

  I nodded.

  He let out a whistle.

  I suddenly felt like I was doing something wrong. I dropped the cigarette and put it out.

  “I gotta get back to my tables.”

  There were no tables. I just needed to cut myself off. I felt something inside of me that was a little frightening. Like my grip on the tightly ratcheted control I exerted on my life, at home, was slipping.

  That was bad.

  So bad.

  I looked around the kitchen as I left it, making a list of things I could busy myself doing, to take my mind off...whatever it was my mind was on.

  I mean, honestly. I could not believe how carried away I was getting by the first guy I's spent any time around for five years.

  And he was so...young.

  So lean. So athletic. So tingling with heated, animal, energy -

  Laura, god! Stop it.r />
  The dining room was as dead as when I had left it, so I went to the bathroom to cool off.

  I looked at myself in the mirror.

  I had worn an old shirt of mine, because it was the only slightly-fashionable, somewhat sexy item I could find. It predated the children, and I had only worn a few times. It was tight against me, and I looked at my shape in the mirror with a critical eye, even as I wondered what the hell I was doing.

  I frowned at the curvier mid-section. Definitely different.

  But still...not bad, right?

  I turned sideways.

  I was thicker, that was for sure. But I had worked hard to get rid of the pouch of fat the kids had left behind, and it was almost gone. I sucked in my stomach and straightened up.

  Good as new.

  I looked at my face.

  I had never been a great beauty. I had a lot of quirky features and they didn't mesh, like some omen’s did, into something stunning. I was “pretty.” Wasn't here some quote about how ugly people could be beautiful, but pretty people, never?

  Anyway, I had somehow avoided crows-feet and baggy eyes, but my cheeks were doing that thing. Sort of falling. Like a souffle.

  I had put on a little bit of makeup. My lips looked nice.

  I tried to cheer myself up. For almost forty, I was not looking bad. In fact, with the silly waitress get-up, and the jeans, and the pony-tail, I looked pretty good. Pretty young.

  I smiled at myself. I was fun.

  Suddenly realizing what I was doing, I felt so silly I raised my hand to my mouth and stifled a laugh.

  “Oh my god,” I said aloud. I looked around, as though someone might have sneaked in and heard me. This was ridiculous.

  I shook my head at myself and walked out.

  A rush of people, mysteriously, showed up around 9:00 pm to eat in the restaurant, so I didn't end up getting cut, as I had half-hoped I would.

  And half-hoped I wouldn't.

  I didn't know what I was hoping.

  I was glad for the rush, glad to take my mind off of the really weird thoughts I was having about Nate, but without actually having to leave and not be around him.