The Seducer (4 page)

“No thanks!” Mireille snapped back, in an uncharacteristically irate tone.

This time I need to finesse her, Michael told himself. He wasn't about to lose a perfectly decent long-term lover for a short-lived, albeit large-chested, fling.

“
On déjeune ensemble
?” he amiably invited his officemate to lunch. “
Au revoir Lisa! Bonne chance avec les devoirs. A demain
!” he turned to dismiss Lisa as graciously as possible. She left him with his colleague, but only after giving him an incriminating wink.

“Aren't you worried about screwing your own student? You could easily be fired for this, you know,” Mireille said loudly enough to be overheard by Ms. Jones-Alter, the Senior Administrative Manager, who looked up disapprovingly from her computer.

But Michael didn't mind Mireille's indiscretion. On the contrary, he felt touched by it. After all, the poor girl was jealous and in love with him. To demonstrate his appreciation, he made love to her more tenderly than usual on that day. And when he said
je t'aime
to her, he almost meant it.

“So did I choose well or did I choose well?” asked Alain Boulanger, a Frenchman whose last name sounded very seductive to American women: until, that is, they learned it meant “baker.”

Though not one to be an ingrate, Jose, the future groom, who happened to be a sculptor specializing in female nudes, upheld his high standards: “Yeah, we loved the slot machines. They were almost as much fun as those at
Chucky Cheese's
!” he said with a good-natured laugh, opening the front door to usher his friends into his modest studio apartment.

Although the slot machines at the local casino may not have been the most exciting venue for a bachelor party, it would be unfair to hold it against Alain. After all, he had done his best. He was one of those men who was mostly talk and no bite. Alain bragged about his success with the ladies whenever he wasn't chaperoned by Sara, his second wife. From what Jose and the others could tell, he tried to pick up anything that moved and wore panties, with only limited success. Around his wife, however, the Frenchman assumed a lap dog demeanor. He never leered at other women when in her company, knowing full well that the more he displayed his predilection for the fair sex, the shorter his leash become. “What do you mean
Chuck E. Cheese's
?” he objected to the unflattering comparison. “That was a world class casino.”

“Call me crazy, but I think I speak for everyone here,” Jose gestured towards his distinguished companions, “when I say that we'd have preferred to see some of the racier shows.”

Alain frowned at his friend's ingratitude. “Although I do quite well for myself and my family,
excuse moi
, but I'm not a millionaire, you know!” he attempted to justify why the only part of the bachelor party he had sponsored was the one where destitute retirees dispensed with their monthly Social Security checks.

“Yeah, well, I prefer the
slut
machines myself,” Michael intervened jovially. “Speaking of which, when is she coming?”

“In which sense of the term?” Alain was quick on the draw himself.

“Hopefully both,” Michael remarked frankly.

“I expressly asked for a Latin, model type,” Jose reiterated, feeling that with such boorish buddies there was no room for subtlety.

“You mean you want your wife to be your stripper? If so, count me in!” Michael announced with a laugh, since Jose was about to marry Maria, a Latina mamasita who had been his model and muse for the past three years.

“No,” Jose objected in all seriousness, “but I explicitly requested a stripper who looks like her.”

“I have a solution! Why don't we all jack off to Maria's picture and call it a night?” Michael pushed the envelope.

Jose breathed in and out to control his anger. He didn't particularly appreciate the implication that his future wife was a slut, even if he did meet her at a gentlemen's club on the outskirts of Detroit, where he used to scout for cheap models. Cheap as in inexpensive, of course, since Maria was obviously virtuous. Otherwise he wouldn't have even contemplated marriage.

“Philippe, my man, you're being awfully quiet tonight,” Michael slapped his colleague from the graduate French program on his reed-like back. One could see, even through his dated yellow
Izod
tee shirt, the relief of every knobby ridge of his spine.

“I don't like smoking or drinking. As for women, I have more sophisticated tastes than the rest of you guys,” Philippe declared, telling himself that he should have stuck to his general policy of being friends only with cute and, preferably, much younger women.

“I realize that, but unfortunately the middle school is closed. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until tomorrow morning,” Michael teased his buddy about his predisposition for little Lolitas.

“Laugh all you want. But everyone knows that, objectively speaking, girls are much prettier than women. The ideal age for human females is between twelve and sixteen,” Philippe stated scientifically, then switched to poetic mode: “Girls are blooming rose buds whereas women are wilted flowers.”

“I couldn't agree with you more, mon cher Baudelaire,” Michael responded. “I mean, what man in his right mind would prefer a woman with tits and ass over a flat-chested little girl with popsicle sticks for legs?”

As usual, Philippe took the bait: “Make fun all you want, but for your information, in Thailand, where I went on vacation, the strippers were usually between ten and sixteen. By the time they're twenty-one, many of them have already died of AIDS,” he added, to bolster his case.

“Now there's a humane society!” Alain commented, relishing the fact that, for once, he was not the butt of Michael's jokes.

Why do I even bother with these brutes? Philippe wondered. Fortunately, he was literally saved by the bell.

“That must be her!” Michael exclaimed. He was far more excited about the stripper's visit than the finicky groom himself, who, at any rate, had feasted his eyes upon nude models most of his adult life.

Such a waste of hard-earned money, Alain thought, glad that someone else had taken care of that unnecessary expense.

Michael rushed to open the door. He was pleasantly surprised by Anita, since that was the petite Puerto Rican's name.

“Ehh ... Is this the fiesta for ... Jose?” she asked, coyly looking at Michael.

What fiery, lovely eyes, he couldn't help but notice. His gaze then lowered approvingly to her compact curves. “Absolutely. Please come in,” he played the role of the polite gentleman, which was somewhat difficult to maintain once Anita whispered into his ear that she was usually paid double for the extra. “Sure thing,” Michael confirmed their earlier understanding. He slipped into her hand two hundred dollar bills for a little treat for the groom.

The show was sufficiently impressive to engage even Philippe, who didn't have to retire to a different room with the copy of
Barely Legal
he had brought along, just in case the stripper turned out to be too mature for his taste. “
Pas mal
,” he told himself, eyeing approvingly Anita's doll-like face and thin, narrow shoulder blades that, despite the fact she was in her late twenties, had retained an air of girlish fragility.

At 5 feet 2 inches with heels on and barely 100 pounds, the curvy Anita, who happened to be an expert at nude salsa dancing, proved to be to everyone's liking. “For such a little thing, she sure has nice tits,” Michael observed as he watched her quick, sensual moves. His tongue tingled for a taste of those carmelicious globes of flesh from which he couldn't unpeel his eyes.

“She looks so much like my future wife!” Jose observed. “I wonder how much she'd charge for nude modeling,” was his next thought, since Maria was planning to take a break from her job as soon as they got busy creating a little Josito or Marisita together.

Alain concentrated his gaze upon the dancer's heart-shaped ass and slim, muscular legs. The legs of a dancer, he noted with satisfaction. Anita did a polite bow at the end of the show. Her dark eyes glittered naughtily towards Jose, lingering upon him for a few seconds. Then, without uttering a word, she slipped into the bathroom ostensibly to change back into her street clothes, while leaving the door slightly ajar.

Without much further ado, Michael gave Jose an encouraging nudge towards the bathroom. The future groom entered the room looking pretty nervous but, after about ten minutes during which some grunts and a few exclamations in Spanish could be overheard, he reemerged triumphant.

Since he had orchestrated the most entertaining part of the bachelor party, Michael felt entitled to walk in next. He asked Anita how much she charged for the usual, smiling very sweetly, hoping for a discount. The stripper looked at his warm brown eyes. “For you, half price, but shhhh, don't tell nobody else,” she placed her index finger to her crimson lips. As soon as he slipped the hundred­dollar bill into her hand, she got down on her knees and masterfully wrapped him up into a condom. She's so adorable, Michael thought as he turned her little body around over the sink, her hands plastered like suction cups on the mirror. Focusing on the tattoo of a little butterfly on the small of her back, he lifted Anita off the floor. They pollinated each other for quite some time. When the soles of her bare feet touched the floor again, he allowed his profound gratitude to gush. The stripper seemed so pleased with the experience that she even rewarded Michael with a kiss on the cheek. As a gesture of camaraderie, she placed the hundred-dollar bill he had given her back into his hand, closing his fingers upon it one at a time.

Alain was next. But by then Anita must have already been exhausted. Or perhaps she just looked at his Inspector Clouseau disheveled hair and his little Charlie Chaplin mustache and thought that these alone required extra cash and fortitude. “It's going to be three hundred dollars,” she announced in a business-like tone. “That's kind of expensive, don't you think?” Alain protested. But he was in too desperate a state to refuse her offer.

Philippe went in last. Almost as soon as he entered the bathroom, Anita stepped out with a wounded look upon her face. She mumbled that the gentleman must be “loco.” Apparently, after she announced her price, Philippe expressed a preference for being alone with his copy of
Barely Legal
magazine over her expert services. Meanwhile, Alain had already found out from Michael about the wide discrepancy in the exotic dancer's extra fees. A dispute concerning unfair treatment was about to ensue had Jose not promptly intervened. He dispatched Anita with a small bonus while diverting his buddies' attention to the free booze.

Michael returned home from the bachelor party around 4 a.m. As soon as he stepped into the living room, he noticed that the red light of the answering machine was blinking. He figured it was nothing important. Whatever it was could wait until the following morning. He proceeded to crash on the living room couch without changing his clothes.

At 9:23 a.m.—Michael checked his watch twice since he felt it was way too early to get up—he heard Karen fiddle with her spare key in the front lock, which had a slight imperfection. “Hold on a sec!” he called out groggily and got up to open the door for her.

It's only when Karen's eyes moved over him disapprovingly that he realized he was still wearing the previous day's outfit. “I was wasted last night,” he said by way of explanation.

“You mean this morning? Did you enjoy the stripper?” Karen inquired matter-of-factly, but her lips pursed into a tense smile.

“She was alright,” Michael shrugged, knowing better than to elaborate.

“Was she pretty?” In spite of her best efforts to be cool about it, Karen felt a knot of jealousy constricting her throat.

Michael's policy had always been to mix a grain of truth with the lies, so that she couldn't tell the difference. But this time he saw no harm in answering Karen's question quite honestly: “Actually, as far as strippers go, she wasn't too shabby,” he replied as he stepped into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Karen heard a light tinkle, followed by a vigorous flush. He can't even close the door like a civilized human being! she muttered to herself. Although she realized that bachelor parties were a culturally accepted institution, she had little patience with this sleazy ritual right before a man enters into a so-called monogamous marriage. What kind of training for monogamy was that anyway? To distract herself from her mounting indignation, Karen began cleaning Michael's apartment. She collected the socks and shirts scattered on the floor and lined up his shoes neat and parallel by the front door. “We're still on the same wavelength about the justice of the peace thing, right?” she double-checked. She certainly didn't want Michael having another bachelor party with his buddies, all of whom she considered big-time losers and hard-core womanizers. If not having her fiancé fool around with strippers before their wedding day implied foregoing the fairytale wedding she had dreamed about ever since she began collecting
Bride Magazine
at the age of twelve, then so be it.

“Sure thing!” Michael called out from the bathroom. “Why? Are you having second thoughts about it?” Karen didn't reply, so he began to wonder if she had gotten it into her head to have the big wedding she originally wanted. He had worked hard to persuade his fiancée that an elaborate reception would be expensive. Worse yet, it would require spending time with each other's families, something both of them preferred to avoid. “We wouldn't have much time to plan the wedding anyway,” he said, washing his hands.

When Michael stepped out of the bathroom, Karen had a strange look upon her face. She looks like a deer trapped in front of the headlights, he thought, noticing her frozen expression. “What the hell happened? Did you decide you want a huge wedding after all?” he asked with a chuckle, prepared to fight her tooth and nail.