Working Stiff (7 page)

“
This
one's Dave,” Lisa said and patted my knee under the table. Lilly ruffled his hair, then held his chin between her forefinger and thumb and shook it from left to right, causing his teeth to clatter together, and took the chair next to him. Dave looked like he was about to cry as Lisa clapped her hands in excitement. Dave's shyness and good nature amused Lisa to no end, and she seemed to live to affectionately tease him for his blushes. Behind the ostentatious diversion of Lilly was her unassuming husband, Paul.

“Hi, everyone,” he said before plonking himself down next to me. Lisa made the introductions. Paul was originally Lilly's chauffeur when she was an exotic dancer and sometime porn star in Las Vegas. Around forty and sporting a paunch, Paul looked like any suburban workaday Joe, which is exactly what he became after he and Lilly moved back to Peabody, Massachusetts.

“So you're the bloody bloke, are ya?” he asked, slapping me on the back.

“Er…yes. Yes, I am.”

“Well, I traveled a lot to Jersey and Guernsey for work and I tell ya, you guys can put down a few pints.”

“Yeah!” I said, though typically drinking a few pints makes me feel bloated and in need of a nappy nap.

“They have Boddingtons here,” he said as the waitress delivered the tropical cocktail I'd ordered in a hollowed-out pineapple. She set it between us and lit the sparkler that had been thrust through the lid. I gave Paul an apologetic look through the plume of leaves at the top.

“Oh,” he said and turned quickly to Dave, terrorizing him with frank statements about his wife's genitalia. “She's got a great little pussy, Dave, just you wait.” Every facet of Dave's body language screamed that he wanted out, right now. I said something that I found hilarious and Paul announced to the restaurant that my British sense of humor was too dry and “needed a big squirt of lube,” horrifying a redheaded hula girl.

Dinner conversation was propelled along by Lilly and the revelations of her sex life, which she delivered in the most Anglo-Saxon terms, embarrassing Dave, arousing Paul, entertaining Lisa, and leaving me wondering how on earth I got to be sitting there in the first place. Lilly, it transpired, was a squirter—a woman who can ejaculate. Paul, fittingly, was adept at facilitating this phenomenon.

“Paul can make anyone squirt,” said Lilly, looking lovingly across the table at her husband. “I've seen him do it a bunch of times.”

Lisa, being the celebrity and usual instigator of this kind of weirdness, looked out of place as the beta female. I looked over at her as a single tear ran down her cheek.

“Are you okay?”

“I'll be fine in a second,” she said, beginning to gently weep. “It's
this.
” Lisa pointed skyward and I followed her finger to whatever was upsetting her.

“It's the music.”

Though it was barely audible, Lisa had been moved by the guitar solo in “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits. They were playing the whole album and I struggled with how it fit in with the overall theme of the South Pacific.

“It's just so…soulful,” she said, wiping her tears with her napkin and returning to what I imagined to be her normal self. From what I'd read, and from what I'd seen prior to Lilly and Paul's arrival, Lisa was usually the person doing the dumbfounding with her uninhibited antics. Lisa was now the reactor and not the instigator. As Lilly took full control of the conversation, Lisa shot me looks that said, “Can you believe this shit?” I couldn't.

Lisa decided that we'd all go bowling after dinner and we split into two cars, Dave with Lilly and Paul, me with Lisa. Lisa's driving was an extension of her reckless spirit, and a thankfully short white-knuckle ride toward the bowling alley ensued. We reached a bridge and Lisa skidded over to an off-ramp and told me that she wanted to show me something.

We walked down some steep steps to where a grandfather and his grandson were fishing off a dock in the moonlight.

“Caught anything?” Lisa asked them, seeming genuinely interested.

“Not yet,” said the older man.

Lisa sat on the end of the dock, dangled her legs over the edge, and motioned for me to sit down next to her. We watched a cloud of silverfish tumble around in the water below us for about a minute. I thought Lisa was going to mention something about the reason I was here, the competition, sex or backing out. So I waited, saying nothing.

“My mom's here,” Lisa said eventually, looking up at the moon. “This is where I scattered her ashes. Do you like it here?”

“I do.”

We looked on as the younger fisherman felt a nibble on his line and reeled in fast, but it got away. He recast his line and we peered at where it had sunk for a minute or so.

“When did she…”

“We should get back now,” she said, then turned to the men. “Good luck, guys!”

They waved and I chased her up the hill and into the car.

We checked our shoes at the bowling alley, where Lisa suggested that we do candlepin bowling and not tenpin. Paul and Dave went to get drinks and Lilly didn't want to play. Lisa was first up. She took a ten-step run, her gangly limbs flailing, and launched the ball across three lanes before almost falling on her ass. I couldn't figure whether she'd meant to do that or not. Then her second ball sailed four lanes over and she hit the deck laughing. People from the third and fourth lanes over glanced in our direction but said nothing.

“The bar here is closed,” said Paul, who was ruthlessly intent on drinking a lot more. “The bartender got wicked sick and went home.”

We all agreed that if tonight was going to happen the booze needed to flow and swapped our bowling shoes back at no charge. Lisa and Dave conferred about a suitable venue and we split into our same groups and rendezvoused at Carabella's, a charming dive bar that was holding a karaoke night, hosted by DJ Jazzy Jeff. Whether it was
the
DJ Jazzy Jeff remained unclear as a huge rubber alien Mardi Gras mask enveloped his constantly bopping head.

Lisa gave me a twenty and asked me to get a round of drinks while she went to the bathroom. To my horror, Lilly asked for a sex on the beach, a drink the flannel-shirted barkeep was completely unfamiliar with. Lilly shouted the list of ingredients as a woman missing some fairly important teeth sang “Livin' La Vida Loca” to the best of her smoker's lung's abilities. I talked the bartender through the process and he seemed eager to learn. He washed the dust off a seldom-used cocktail shaker and pressed an upturned glass inside it. He had somehow applied too much pressure and broke the delicate cocktail tumbler, forcing a shard of glass into the artery where the palm meets the wrist, shooting an arc of blood through the air and into the ice trough. The stools around the bar all noisily scooted back as loyal patrons helped to the best of their inebriated abilities.

“Hold it above your head, Jack!” slurred one.

“Somebody wrap a towel around it!” offered another.

“Oh my sweet Lord!” wheezed the woman through the karaoke speakers.

One drunk sobered up enough to improvise a tourniquet and helped the poor man into his car and swerved off toward the emergency room as a wizened regular dutifully took over behind the bar. Oblivious to the pandemonium she'd unleashed, Lilly had cornered Dave and was stroking his inner thighs to his extreme discomfort. Lisa arrived back in the bar, also unaware of the carnage, and helped me deliver the drinks to our unlikely fellowship. The karaoke had become too loud to talk over so we mostly just listened to the performances and swapped a few words in the relative calm between songs.

“Let's go fuck!” said Lilly during one of the respites, causing Lisa to spit a mouthful of gin and tonic back into the glass. I was filled with trepidation and was trembling before I stepped into the forty-degree night in my inadequate jacket.

Lisa's lemon yellow house was in the center of a thickly wooded cul-de-sac.

Dave, Lisa, and Lisa's son, Wolf, had not been living there long. There were still unpacked boxes, vast expanses of unbroken white wall space, and a new squeak to the slick blond wood floors. It was very cold in the new house, though I seemed to be the only person registering discomfort. My teeth were chattering as Lisa gave us all a perfunctory tour. We returned to the living room, and while Lisa made drinks, Paul went outside and came back in with two boxes, which he set down in the middle of the living room.

“Now I want you all to sit down,” said Lilly with the inflection of a petulant eight-year-old. “I've got something to show you.”

Dave and I sandwiched Lisa on a small pullout sofa as Paul leaned against the dining table, smiling. Lisa noticed my shivering and produced a crocheted blanket for me to wrap myself in.

Lilly took a videotape from the first box and inserted it into the VCR. It was one of the porno flicks in which she had recently starred. It was queued to a scene featuring Lilly and an unfamiliar actress in a
69 position. Lilly's head spun back and forth between the TV and the shocked audience on the sofa.

“Hee hee, that's me!” she said.

“It's beautiful!” her loving husband chimed in.

Lisa spied the growing bulge in Dave's jeans and playfully flicked it, laughing.

“That other girl is dead now,” she deadpanned. “Drugs.”

Silence. We watched Lilly's celluloid orgasm in reverent silence.

“What does that tattoo on your ass say?” asked Lisa, finally breaching the stillness.

Preferring to show rather than tell, Lilly immediately stripped down to underwear no bigger than an eye patch and jutted her round posterior into Lisa's face. Lisa laughed and squeezed it like a melon at the supermarket, Paul smiled proudly, Dave's erection became more pronounced as his face reddened, and I was unable to stop shaking. Lilly then dropped to her hands and knees and opened the second box and produced about fifteen Ziploc bags, each containing a sex toy. I'd seen a vibrator before, but not the spectrum of butt plugs, ball-gags, strap-on harnesses, riding crops, handcuffs, and mammoth dildos that she neatly laid out before us.

“My goodness!” said Lisa.

“They're all washed and ready to go,” Lilly professed.

“Good to go,” confirmed Paul.

“Where can I fuck your husband, Lisa?” asked Lilly, grabbing an appalled-looking Dave by the scruff of the neck.

“Uh…in our bedroom. Grant and I will stay down here.”

“Do you have somewhere I can sit and read?” asked Paul, a dog-eared issue of
Guns & Ammo
rolled up in his hand.

“In my office,” she said. “At the top of the stairs.”

With the three of them gone, Lisa centered her full attention on me.

“Are you still cold?” she asked.

“I'm shivering all over.”

Lisa produced a comforter and asked me to lie on the rug. She laid next to me and we wrapped each other up in our arms for warmth.

“Is that better?” she asked, moving every part of her frame to create maximum friction.

“Much better, thanks.”

We held each other until our combined body heat had filled the space under the puffy comforter.

“Lisa!” Dave whined from upstairs. “I need you!”

Silence.

“Perhaps we should have married sex,” said Lisa.

“What's that?”

“That's when you do it like you've got someplace to be in a hurry. It sounds like Dave needs me. Just lie on me and put it in.”

I froze momentarily before deciding that I would do something bold and fearless—something that was very unlike me. I reached into Lisa's miniskirt and pulled her tights and underwear off in one motion, causing her to exclaim “wow,” and shoved my face between her legs. My intent was to impress her with unabashed enthusiasm. Seemingly enraptured, she tugged at my hair, moaning and giggling. She said wow a few more times. After a few minutes, Lisa shoved me to the floor and returned the favor with equal vim and relish. I reached for Lisa's breasts and helped them free of her sweater. I'd read in her diary that she'd had implants and was taken aback at how alien they felt. Very solid and hard but not unpleasant. Unlike real breasts, they seemed attached to her rib cage, and I found that I couldn't push them together very far.

The comforter suddenly disappeared and there above us stood Lilly, buck naked and brandishing a leather paddle, greedily feasting her eyes on what was happening.

“What are you doing, you bad girl!”

“Um…I'm sucking Grant's cock,” Lisa said matter-of-factly. It shocked me.

“Can you stop for a sec and come upstairs? Dave is sort of having a meltdown.”

“We'll be up in a minute,” Lisa said as I began to feel the cold air around us and my penis soften.

Lilly gamely bounded back up the stairs. We shrugged off the rest of our clothes and Lisa warmed me up again with her windmill limbs.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. It's just, this is really nuts!”

“I know.”

“I've spent the last two weeks reading practically everything you've written!”

She seemed stunned.

“I told you not to! I don't break into your house and read your diary!”

“Lisa!”
came a desperate scream from Dave.

“We'd better go and help him,” said Lisa, grabbing my hand and pulling me up the stairs.

I saw Lisa's body for the first time in the ambient light coming in from the porch and it was like nothing I had seen before or since. She was incredibly lean; I doubt she'd float in water. She had a long musculature, her breathtaking legs and ass were those of a Kenyan boy, her pinched waist slowly curved out to elegant, squarish shoulders, off of which swung graceful arms. Her torso seemed incredibly long, and despite her never deliberately exercising she could probably muster up a six-pack while you wait. In spite of her nudity she walked proudly up to the door of the master bedroom. Because of mine, I cowered behind, doughy, slouched, and shielding my private area from view. We waited outside the door and listened as Lilly—we
hoped
it was Lilly—emitted little squeals.