Mister Moneybags

by Vi Keeland

  She looked down and laughed. “He’s a slobberer.”

  “Tell me about it. I can’t get him to sleep anywhere but on my bed. Some mornings, I worry my housekeeper is going to think I’ve developed a bed-wetting problem.”

  “I think it’s really sweet you’re allowing him to sleep in the bed with you. But it’s a hard habit to break, and dogs can become territorial when…you know…you have company.”

  “Perhaps he needs to get used to it right away. Are you available to stay this evening?”

  Bianca rolled her eyes at me. “Are you giving me a tour, or what?”

  Joel was busy taking test shots of different places in the living room to test out the natural light streaming in from the windows, so I put my hand at Bianca’s back. “Of course. What do you say I show you the bedroom first?”

  “What a shocker you’d suggest that?”

  I gave Bianca the grand tour; she seemed curious as we walked around. Although I noticed she stayed in the doorway of my bedroom. She was trying to keep her distance, and as much as I understood that, my need to push closer was equally as strong as hers was to push me away. I got the feeling our standoff might be a test of endurance. What she didn’t realize was that we’d had our first battle, and due to my own asinine self, I lost that one. But this was a war—one I planned to win.

  When we got to my office, I opened the door and then quickly shut it. Coming to my apartment wasn’t something I’d originally planned, and I’d forgotten the mess I’d left on my desk.

  “It’s a mess in there,” I offered, and began to walk toward the next door. But Bianca didn’t budge.

  “What are you hiding in there?”

  “Nothing.”

  She squinted. “More secrets?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “So show me the room. What are you hiding from me now, Dex? Or should I call you Jay when you lie?” She folded her arms over her chest.

  There was no way out of this one unscathed. I took a deep breath. “Fine.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I just stood and stared. The oversized desk was a cluttered mess. There were piles of wood shavings, various wooden blocks that were carved and disregarded, an instruction book that was held open by a desk phone and all sorts of wooden-handled tools scattered around the long desk. But that wasn’t what got to me. It was the open first aid kit, along with an assortment of crumpled up, bloodied paper towels and at least half a dozen Band-Aid wrappers.

  Dex was standing behind me. Neither of us had said a word since he’d flicked on the light. I turned to face him.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you tell me you whittled?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  He raked a hand through his dark hair. “I have no fucking idea. I wanted to sound like a regular guy, I guess.”

  My lip twitched. “You have no idea what regular guys do for hobbies, do you?”

  “I was raised privileged, Bianca. If I’d told you that I fenced competitively in high school and spent my weekends at sailing regattas, what would you have thought?”

  He had a point. One lie can easily snowball into so many. “For the record, I’ve dated mostly regular guys and none of them whittled, Dex.”

  “So noted.”

  “Pretty sure most of them didn’t say things like ‘so noted,’ either.”

  He smiled half-heartedly. I could see he felt bad for what he’d done. In fact, I was certain he had been beating himself up over it on a regular basis even while he was lying to me daily. I stopped at the doorway when Dex flicked off the light. “I’ll give you this much. You committed to the character.”

  He grumbled. “Or I should be committed.”

  After my tour was over, Joel was all ready to take photos. He did a series of Dex standing at his window with the view of Central Park, followed by some of him standing in front of the massive fireplace that was the center of the living room. But it was the ones that he took of Dex sitting on the couch that I liked best.

  Joel had just taken a break from shooting when Dex’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and went to sit on the couch to talk to what I assumed from the side of the conversation that I’d heard, was his secretary. As Dex was talking, Bandit slunk up on the couch and lay next to him, resting his long face on his master’s lap. He mindlessly stroked the dog’s head while he went about the conversation with Josephine. From the other side of the room, Joel lifted his camera and started taking photos of what we both saw. I could only imagine how intimate the photos were going to come out.

  By the time Dex hung up, Joel was starting to pack up his camera equipment.

  “You’re all done?” Dex asked.

  “I think I have more than enough. You’ll be very happy with the results.”

  Dex nodded, then looked at me. “Do me a favor, Joel? Take one more. I’d like a photo with Ms. George.”

  “Of course.”

  Dex extended his hand toward me, and I felt foolish making a stink over a silly picture, so I went to stand next to him. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close. Joel snapped some shots and then Bandit decided to get in on the action. He jumped up between us, one paw landing on each of my and Dexter’s chests. We laughed while Joel took a few more.

  There was an awkwardness when Joel was finished gathering his things and packing his camera up. Well, at least, I felt it. Joel extended his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Truitt. I’ll have these photos to your office within two weeks.”

  Dex nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Are you heading uptown?” Joel turned to me. “Perhaps we can split a cab?”

  Before I could answer, Dex cut in. “Actually. I need to go over some last minute things about the article, Bianca. Do you think you can stay for a few minutes?”

  It wasn’t smart for me to be alone with him. “I’d love to, but I have an appointment I need to get to.”

  Dex was not going to make it easy. “Two minutes. I’ll have my driver take you wherever you need to go after we’re done so you don’t have to waste time grabbing a cab.”

  He walked Joel to the door before I could answer. When he came back to the living room, I was sitting on the couch rubbing my neck. It was really starting to hurt.

  “Your neck is still bothering you?”

  I nodded. “It’s muscular. Nothing a warm bath or a heating pad won’t take care of.”

  “Scoot up.”

  “What?”

  Dex motioned for me to sit on the edge of the couch cushion. “These fingers can’t whittle for shit, but they can rub a mean massage. Let me at least help you with that.”

  Again, he didn’t wait for my answer. Instead, he slipped off his shoes, stood up on the couch, and swung one leg over to the other side of me. Then, he settled in behind me, enveloping me between his parted thighs.

  I was about to object, when his fingers pressed into my neck. God, that feels good. Two minutes won’t hurt.

  Dex wasn’t lying; he could definitely give a mean massage. His thumbs rubbed up and down either side of my spine, and he applied firm pressure, kneading a circular motion to relieve the tension in my muscles. Loosening up, my head dropped until my chin was practically resting on my chest. I lost track of time as he quietly rubbed and pressed in all the right places. At one point, he guided my head to the left side and focused on an area on the right at the top of my shoulder blade. A little mewl escaped my lips before I could catch it. After that, even though my neck was relaxed, I started to feel other things tensing up. Dex was getting aroused, and since I was sitting between his legs, I could literally feel his erection swelling up against my ass. God it feels so good.

  A large part of me wanted to enjoy it, to relish the feel of his fingers pressing into my achy neck muscles and his firm cock nudging at my ass cheeks as it grew. But then I remembered the other time I felt Dex up against my ass. Only it wasn’t Dex�
��it was Jay. The night he’d showed up at my place unannounced, and I practically dry humped him. He’d spent an hour online with me as Dex and then must have raced over to my apartment to spend the next half hour as Jay. He didn’t even require a break between his lies. Realizing that was like having a bucket of cold water thrown over me.

  I abruptly stood. “I should go.”

  Dex stood with me. “I’m sorry. Don’t go. I tried everything. Even thinking about the time I walked in on my grandmother having sex with my grandfather, but not even that calamity could stop my body from reacting to having you near me. I didn’t ask you to stay to get physical with you. I wasn’t going to try to seduce you.”

  Oddly, I believed him. “Why did you ask me to stay then, Dex?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were feeling alright from the accident this morning. But I also wanted to see if I could convince you to go on a date with me. Can we start over? I know I fucked up royally—just give me the chance to show you I’m a man you can trust.”

  That was half of the problem. Trust was an issue to begin with for me. I knew I had some daddy issues that were at the root of many of my doubts. But I also knew that it was nearly impossible to be around Dex without something physical happening between us. And being physical with him before I was able to forgive him and truly trust him again, would be a big mistake.

  “I need some time, Dex.”

  “How much time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked panicked. “Can we at least continue to chat in the evenings?”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Bianca…what can I do?”

  I actually felt bad for him. Reaching out, I touched his cheek. “Give me time. At least a few weeks.”

  He searched my eyes. Finding I was serious, his shoulders slumped. “Fine.”

  I pushed up on my tippy toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Take care of yourself, Dex.”

  “Damn you, Clement.”

  Sometimes when I got frustrated about the Bianca situation, I spent my time watching YouTube videos of my whittling nemesis. The kid could whittle anything with precision without getting a single cut on his hands. It pissed me off, yet invigorated me at the same time.

  Do better, Dex.

  I needed to step up my game.

  “Nice haircut, by the way,” I spoke to the computer screen, referring to his straight blond hair that was exactly the same length all the way around like a bowl.

  I shouldn’t have been torturing myself like this, but lately, it seemed harder and harder to sanely occupy my time outside of work. Bianca didn’t want to resume our evening chats or see me at all for a few weeks. That basically meant several days of Dexter going slowly insane and nearly blind from jerking himself off.

  I vowed to use these days wisely. Just because she didn’t want to see me, didn’t mean I couldn’t let her know I was thinking about her. I liked to refer to this period of time as Operation Get Bianca Back.

  Step one: learn to actually whittle so you can make her romantic wooden things. All the wooden things! I bet if I put my mind to it, I could whittle a goat that might be half as good as the one I bought at the Brooklyn flea market.

  I turned to Bandit who was sitting beside me watching Clement whittle away. “That’s genius, right? Show her I’m putting in the effort. It’s heartfelt and original at the same time.”

  “Ruff!”

  I typed in: how to whittle a goat.

  Unfortunately, there weren’t any videos fitting my exact specifications. I randomly clicked on the first clip that came up in my search.

  It was some guy with an Australian accent holding a chubby baby girl. There was an actual goat sitting next to them.

  “Come on, Bree, say Dada.”

  Every time the man would say the word, “Dada,” the goat would let out a long “Baa.”

  The baby would just let out a belly laugh each time the goat made a sound.

  “Say Dada.”

  The goat responded, “Baa.”

  Giggle.

  “Say Dada…Dada,” the man repeated.

  “Baa.”

  Giggle. Giggle.

  What in the ever-living fuck was I watching?

  The man turned to the goat. “Mate, can you stop for a bit? She won’t say it if you keep making her laugh.”

  “Baa!”

  Giggle. Giggle. Giggle.

  The video ended. I immediately hit replay. It was addictive, and dare I say, my mouth hurt from smiling.

  Turning to Bandit, I said, “Imagine that? Talking to a pet like a human being and expecting it to understand?”

  “Ruff!”

  The title of the video was “Pixy and Bree Say Dada.”

  “This is so ridiculous,” I said, discreetly bookmarking the video. This guy, Chance Bateman, had an entire YouTube channel featuring various videos of his two children and the goat. These would come in handy someday when I wanted reassurance that I wasn’t the only person in this world off my fucking rocker. Fuck it. I subscribed to the channel.

  Even though I’d vowed not to call Bianca, that didn’t mean I couldn’t pull some tricks that would make it impossible for her to resist contacting me. When the phone rang, I suspected it might be her.

  I picked up. “Bianca…I—”

  “You are out of your mind.” She sniffled. She was either laughing or crying. She was laughing.

  “You’re laughing, though.”

  “Dex Truitt…I may have to edit the article to include a disclaimer at the end noting that you have totally lost your marbles.”

  “Yes, but you’re laughing.”

  “How did you even get it into my apartment?”

  “Let’s just say your maintenance guy is going to have a really nice Christmas this year.”

  “It scared the living daylights out of me. I thought it was a real person, that someone had broken into my apartment and was readying to kill me.”

  “You’re laughing, though!” I repeated again.

  “I am,” she conceded. “You are totally nuts.”

  I’d purchased the Liza Minnelli statue from the owner of Jay’s fake apartment and decided to have it transported to Bianca’s. I’d asked him to set it up in a way that she’d see it the second she walked in the door. Making light of crazy Jay’s antics was definitely a risk, but I did it in the hopes that she could eventually learn to look back at that time with humor.

  “Well, now you have to figure out a way to rid my apartment of the mothball smell from that damn place.”

  I’d been laughing before, but now I was laughing even harder.

  “I’ll send for it tomorrow.”

  “Goodbye, Dexter.”

  “Goodbye, Bianca.”

  After I hung up, I looked at Bandit and smiled victoriously. “She loved it.”

  On Sunday, I found myself at The Brooklyn Flea. Some people had drug dealers; I had a wood dealer. Coming upon the tent with the sign that read Jelani’s Kenyan Krafts, I walked over to the familiar vendor.

  “Hi, I bought a wooden billy goat off of you some time ago. I’m not sure if you remember.”

  Still wearing the brightly colored hat from last time, the old man looked me up and down. “Yes. I do remember you,” he said in a strong African accent. “Are you interested in something else?”

  “Actually, I need to ask you a strange favor.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve tried everything online and nothing seems to be working. I need to learn how to whittle and was wondering if I could pay you to teach me.”

  He bent his head back in laughter. “It took me years to learn how to do this, been perfecting my craft since I was a little boy growing up in Kenya.”

  “I can imagine that doing it as well as you do would take years, but I’m just really looking to be able to carve something not even half as good without slicing my fingers off. Even if it looks pathetic, as long as it’s recognizable, that will do.”

  “Boy, wh
y on Earth would you want to even bother?” He squinted at me. “Is this about that woman?”

  “You’re a smart man, Jelani.”

  “Ah. That makes more sense.”

  “Look, I know it sounds crazy. When I bought that goat from you, I told her I had made it myself. But she eventually figured out the truth. I regret ever lying to her and was hoping to prove how sorry I am by actually showing a real effort to make her something similar. Basically, I’m desperate, very close to losing the only woman I’ve ever had true feelings for. I’d do or pay just about anything for your expertise.”

  He let out a deep sigh before jotting down an address. “Meet me at 2PM this afternoon here.”

  I didn’t have enough time to go over the bridge to Manhattan and come back before then, so I hung out in Brooklyn, grabbed a coffee, and walked around aimlessly until it was time to head to the address in Williamsburg.

  At 2PM on the dot, I knocked on the door and waited.

  The old man opened and said nothing as he stepped out of the way so I could enter. His head was completely bald, which I only now realized since he normally wore that African-themed hat. He led me down to a wood workshop located in a dingy basement.

  “I don’t know why, but I pictured you with a full head of hair under that hat,” I said just trying to make conversation. He didn’t seem amused. It was a bit of an awkward start as I looked around. “So this is where the magic happens, huh? How did you get started in wood carving?”

  “My grandfather taught me. We used to sell them to tourists back in Nairobi.”

  He’d set out some tools on a table and gestured for me to sit next to him.

  “The three main things to remember are to always go slow, have a very sharp knife, and keep your hands protected.” He handed me some cut-resistant gloves. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m going to show you. Watch and do as I do.”

  Jelani had already drawn with pencil the pattern of the animal onto two pieces of wood. In silence, I followed every movement he made. We practically said nothing the entire time. It took nearly two hours because that was how slow we were cutting the wood.