The Numbers Game (6 page)

            Why, when
he could be lying back on the couch, with some hot super supreme pizza and
beer, about to watch the game instead. Trust me, it was a tempting alternative.
Markie would happily forgo a night with the sauciest chick, to watch the
all-important game.

“But it’s not
even the finals,” Rick had said, as if that made it a lesser event. “And you’re
gonna record it anyway, plus I’ll tape it too as backup, just in case you’re
worried about your stupid machine going on the blink again.”

 “Can I
have your word on that?” Markie had asked. Because bloody oath he was worried!
For a while now, he’d felt quite anxious depending on technology, on account of
the fact he and technology weren’t really on speaking terms anymore.

“Look,
don’t be a party pooper, Markie, just go and enjoy it,” Rick had winked, giving
him a friendly nudge in the shoulder (or was it a jealous thud?) “Just remember
to get our money’s worth.”

            Damn maybe
he should’ve asked exactly what value for money entailed. Would sixty minutes
of straight head do the trick? Probably, if not Markie was more than happy to
run through a few other scenarios… He let his mind go drifting down some very
attractive unexplored paths, while the clock continued to tick away. Eleven
minutes, ten minutes, nine minutes to go. Before Markie knew it his body was
pumped and it was time for one last reflection check. He rushed to the gold
encrusted hall mirror, where the light was most flattering and worked his way
through the three-point test: hair –check, all tamed and glossy; teeth – check,
brushed and flossed; skin – freshly shaved and cologne applied.   

There,
that was it, pretty impressive. For the first time Markie realized how little
time one actually needed to get ready. What was the deal with spending hours
primping oneself up? Not that Serena was the fussy type, but from the way other
men spoke you’d think women spent more time in the bathroom than out. That went
totally against Markie’s philosophy of
less is always more.

            In the
case of Biffy, Markie was fairly certain she’d be trained in that art: less
clothing, less foreplay and the like. Mmm, he decided he could handle that. In
the space of fifteen seconds, Markie gained some much-needed courage but where
did it all disappear to at eight o’clock when the doorbell rang? It suddenly
hit Markie that damn he was really going to have to go through with this. Too
late to back out now; he couldn’t switch off the lights, hide under the bed and
pretend he wasn’t home. Biffy knew he was there; she’d surely heard his
humming, his galloping across the floorboards, and if he could see Biffy’s
silhouette then she could surely see his. 

            In the
split second before he opened the door, Markie felt like a contestant on a
dating show. He could hear the smarmy host booming down the microphone right
now. “And the contestant you have chosen is Biffy Lasbiyan, ex Playmate, cover
February 2010. Biffy is currently working as a freelance nude body double,
while taking a break from her pretty impressive acting career.
Nineteen-year-old Biffy has already clocked up a starring role in fifteen
movies, among which Let’s Lay Outside and Big Breasts Are Beautiful count as
her biggest hits.”

            The
doorbell rang again as Markie was contemplating another escape.

“Hello,” a
wispy voice called from outside. ”Is anybody there?”

Yes,
yes, say yes,
Markie’s hormones were screaming. So he did and opened the door to his fate.

“So how did it go?”

            The call
came from Rick at about half past nine, two minutes after Markie stepped out of
the shower.

“You
couldn’t wait until I even dried myself off, could you?”

“No way,”
Rick replied, lacking the slightest touch of guilt, “the boys and I are dying
to know. Did she know how to rock or what?”

“Yeah she
rocked,” Markie said, putting their minds at ease.

“Meaning…?” 
Ricky’s voice tapered off into the inquisition.

“Meaning
what?” Markie repeated.

“Come on
man, I didn’t call you to get a summary, I called to get a thorough report. So
start at the beginning and make sure you don’t leave out a scratch.”

            A scratch,
it was funny Rick used that term considering Biffy’s long perfectly French
manicured nails were the first thing he noticed about her. They caught his
attention immediately when she proffered her hand for an introductory shake. 
Delicate yet ultra feminine, Markie had often encouraged Serena to go and get
her nails done in a similar way. But she’d never wanted to, writing the
exercise off as too much hoopla with little staying power.

“I guess
that’s what you get for being complex, Serena,” Markie had thought, happily
taking Miss Biffy by the hand.
If you don’t want to accommodate then chances
are someone else will be more than happy to.

“I’m
Biffy,” the brunette wrapped in a fur shawl had said, as she passed through
threshold, “in case you hadn’t quite worked that out.” She had looked at Markie
and beamed him with that laser strength smile. This, just between you and me,
nearly knocked Markie out.

“Yes, I
was expecting you,” Markie had replied, getting his head around the fact Biffy
was a brunette and not a blonde. In his imagination, he had pictured her to be
peroxide Penthouse type, sexy despite the depressing stereotype. But the Biffy
before him was anything but. She looked rather like a young Catherine Zeta
Jones, all sleek and sophisticated with cutting cheekbones and luscious bee-stung
lips. Oh Lord it was at that moment Markie knew he could go through with it.

“Where
shall we do our business?” Biffy had asked, dropping her coat to the floor.

            Her body
was naked underneath. Lithe yet voluptuous, the girl was obviously an advocate
of waxing.

“Um, how
about right here?” Markie had replied, his manhood getting the better of him.  

            Right
there on the cold slate tiles would be quite soothing to his overheated body.
On second thoughts maybe Biffy wouldn’t consider tiles to be exactly the most
comfortable of surfaces. He had to think about Biffy’s feelings here too.

“How about
we take it through to bedroom instead?” she had countered, voicing his exact
thoughts. “Is it over…?” Biffy had nodded to the door on the right, leading to
the guest bedroom. 

“Yes it is
in fact.”

With each
passing second, Markie had become more and more enthralled with Biffy’s tact
and intelligence. You see he’d been planning to take her to the master room. Of
course now that didn’t seem very fair given it was Serena’s bed.

So that
was how the two strangers ended up together, intimate as newlyweds. Markie had
thought as the master in this master/servant relationship, he’d have a little
more say in the goings-on but it turned out Biffy knew exactly what was expected.
He didn’t even need to utter a word. She just got on her knees, buried her head
in his lap and once he was sufficiently (violently) aroused, she guided Markie back
against the mattress and straddled his hips like a horse. After a good ride,
incorporating some rather intense pelvic muscle tightening exercises, Biffy
then rolled over to her stomach and begged him to take her from behind.

Before he
knew it Markie had blown his load and Biffy winked back at him in response. Yet
seeing her bent over like that unfortunately got Markie all excited again. Without
as much as a “please can I?” he thrust his swollen pain inside her again, for
one long last time. The goodbye bang; lucky for him he was exploding just as Biffy
called “Time’s up.”

“When you said we’d be
going out this weekend, I thought you meant out, out. Not on a bloody spying
mission!”

“Shh,”
Serena hissed, “not so loud, someone might hear you.”

“What?
Here, in the middle of whoop-whoop? I severely doubt that.”

“You never
know; sound travels much faster and further during the night.”   Especially
after midnight if the Wes Craven films were anything to be believed.  She and
Tabitha, like all good amateur spies, were slouched deep into their seats,
swathed by matching red itchy blankets. That had been one of Tabitha’s pedantic
requests: warmth, in addition to the colored popcorn, a thermos of hot
chocolate doused in brandy and full control of radio dial. 

“So, how
much longer?”  Tabitha’s voice was not so much weary as annoyed.

“Just a
bit,” Serena cringed, clinging to the hope.

            After all
he could be coming home any minute now. Who was to say he wasn’t maneuvering
his car into the street and then down the long pebbled driveway in the next
coming second, or the next? Unfortunately no one could knew and worse still,
she and Tabitha had clocked up too much time to leave now. How could they?
Serena’s biggest fear was that he’d enter the picture just as they were exiting
it. And wouldn’t that make for a wonderful waste of a Saturday night.

“Another
fifteen minutes,” Tabitha said in her authoritative voice. “Then we’re out”,
she added silently.

“Don’t
think we need to wait that long,” Serena smiled, forcing Tabitha’s shoulder
southward.

“Ow!”

“Stop
being a baby and get down. He’s here.”

            With her
head barely level to the dashboard, Serena watched the sleek black Mustang
glide across the dewy bitumen. Moonlight hit the chrome and ricocheted off the
windows, sending sparkle splintering in all directions. As prayed the car
veered off to the left and descended down toward the Spanish-type villa.

“Oh my gosh,
it’s really happening,” Serena heaved, her chin pressed against her chest.

“Ah ha,
the opening of door-number three,” Tab observed, “wow, three men pulled out of
a hat in seven hours; this must be some new slow-poke world record.”

“Maybe,
but it’s worth the wait,” Serena sighed, ignoring the sarcasm. “Can’t wait to
see what lies behind this door…”

“Well here
he comes.”

The girls
focused their eyes squarely on the driver’s side of the car as the figure did
the usual things. Switch off ignition, turn off headlights, unleash seatbelt
then fish out keys... Any minute now he, her ex-lover, would be extracting
himself out from the seat and ejecting himself into the real world. A world that,
once again if only for a moment, they would share.

“When’s
the last time you saw him?” Tabitha asked, also on edge of her seat.

            She’d
never met this one, despite being Serena’s best buddy since kindergarten, and
as such this contender had her as intrigued as her friend. This one-off lover,
Brent, had taken place during their Cold War period, a rift set off mainly due
to Serena’s inability to read Tabitha’s mind. The girls had of course resorted
to bedding men until the mind-numbing lack of a proper two-way conversation had
sent them running back into each other’s arms.

Brent had
been one of her better choices.

Tall,
athletic-looking and single, he was the one who’d hesitated at Serena’s
advances. He called her “too hot for him”; though Serena secretly knew she
wasn’t too hot but rather that he thought of her as a slut. Most people
wouldn’t take being called “full-on” as a compliment and neither did she.

If he was
still good-looking, Serena would tell him she’d changed.

She
watched Brent emerge from the car; the long silhouette of man who’d touched
every inch of her body when he was a boy. It was funny; up until then, Serena
hadn’t been able to picture his face. Her memory was a blur of separate
features – straight nose, grey eyes, wide smile and shiny white teeth, which
she couldn’t put together no matter how hard she tried. But now, after seeing
him in the flesh even if from fifty meters away, everything fell into place
with a clunk. How could she have forgotten?

“Well,
well, well Serena, I think we’ve hit jackpot this time!” Tabitha whistled.

“Maybe.” 
Serena replied, biting her lip.  Because same car, same house, did not
necessarily mean same boy.

“How about
we just tick him off and leave the plan of attack until tomorrow?” Tabitha
garbled, reaching down for the last of the popcorn, which lay at her feet.

“Sure…”
Serena strung out, unable to take his eyes off Brent, who was walking back from
the now opened garage door to the car’s passenger side.

“Uh oh…”

“What?”
Tabitha jumped.  She looked back to Mustang, clutching the purple, yellow and
pink popcorn pieces near her mouth.  “Oh crap.”

For there
he was, Mister Congeniality, Mister God-Damn-Gentlemen, opening the other damn
door. A second later a willowy blond princess ejected herself into the damp
cold, and Brent gave her shoulders a quick rub. The princess stood there
shivering as the Mustang rolled a few meters forward into its haven and then
she followed it in once the red brake lights were extinguished.