Tell Me More

Tell Me More

Janet Mullany

www.spice-books.co.uk

In memory of Macheath who always fell over for me

“I’M HERE FOR MY SKIS.”

I looked at him lounging against the doorway. He’d rung the doorbell, an exercise in futility or good manners—I wasn’t sure which since both door and screen were open to catch the late-afternoon sunlight. Hugh was quite the lounger, particularly in others’ beds. Searching for a snappy comeback, I said, “And how’s the stick insect?”

“Flowyr’s fine.”

Flowyr. I’d been betrayed for a woman called Flowyr.

“My skis, Jo.”

I stepped back. “You know where they are.”

He straightened himself and ambled into the house, accompanied by a few yellow leaves. I tried not to watch. There was something about Hugh in motion, any sort of motion, that still did things to me, a sort of knee-jerk hot-wire to desire. My body was in no hurry to change its habits.

I heard him go into the basement. “Hugh, while you’re down there, would you look at the traps?”

“I thought that was what your fucking cat was for.” Banging and thumping noises accompanied his words.

“He can’t empty mousetraps.”

After a while Hugh came back up the stairs carrying his ski gear. “Nothing.”

“Was the peanut butter still on them?”

“Christ, Jo, I don’t know.” He dropped his skis, poles and boots on the hardwood floor with a loud clatter. “I didn’t look that close, okay? It’s dark down there. Do you have my Ken Burns DVDs?”

I gestured toward the living room. “Feel free.”

I followed him in anyway, telling myself it wasn’t for the pleasure of seeing his ski-and-tennis-toned body drop to a squat, only to make sure he didn’t take the Firth-Ehle Pride and Prejudice. He liked Jennifer Ehle and her astonishing elevated breasts; I liked all the astonishingly unfettered penises waving around inside the men’s pants.

“So,” he said, catching me gazing at his thighs, “the thing is, Flowyr and I aren’t together anymore. I told you it was a onetime thing. An accident.”

“An accident? You rear-ended her?”

“Don’t yell, honey, you don’t want to go on the air sounding hoarse—”

“Don’t call me honey.”

He stood—without a tremor, quads in great shape—clutching a stack of DVDs. “Jo, I’m—”

“I bought Shaun of the Dead,” I said, seeing it in his hands.

“For my birthday, so it’s mine. Jo, I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry. The words you never expect to hear from a man. But was his apology for letting Flowyr run his red light or for depriving me of one of my favorite movies?

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

I dropped to the couch, putting myself at eye level with a relatively unfettered penis uncurling behind his khakis.

He had apologized.

If only a moment could be bronzed. Hugh dropped to his knees, laid the DVDs on the floor and shuffled forward. His hands landed on the couch on either side of me. “Sorry. I’ve been so unhappy. I know you have been, too. I was dumb. I …”

This was all too familiar; Hugh making himself available, those lovely toffee-colored eyes with the long lashes, his mouth and a slight dusting of late-day stubble, all within easy reach—all the above-the-neck parts I found sexy and irresistible. And he’d apologized, although I suspected it was pretty meaningless—Had the man no shame? Did he really want to keep Shaun of the Dead that badly? Wasn’t I intending to kick him out of my life (again) with no happy or unhappy returns?

Well, yes. But.

A quick calculation. When did I think I was next going to have the chance of brainless sex with someone who knew what he was doing and knew what I liked? Shouldn’t I be stocking up for the long famine ahead?

A whiff of eau de Hugh wafted into my brain, or crotch, or somewhere.

One of his hands moved to cup my hip.

Our heads swayed, angled.

His lips were slightly chapped. I hadn’t been around to remind him to carry his organic hemp lip salve, and however much mindless screwing he’d had with Flowyr (Flowyr!)—well, that slut wouldn’t be concerned about his lips. Or she might like it rough. Rough skin, that is, rasping on …

Oh, my God. We were kissing and for a moment it was poignant and lovely before it became something equally lovely, but hot and driven. Hands delved into clothes, pushing up, aside, unbuttoning; the press and trail of fingertips, palms, as we became reacquainted with each other’s skin. My T-shirt was up around my collarbone, my bra unsnapped and his tongue in my mouth, on my neck. I had to push him away so I could get rid of my clothes. As I struggled through the dark folds of T-shirt and disentangled my bra, his hands went to work on my jeans, and I lifted my hips to help him get them off me.

“Santa’s come early this year,” he commented at first sight of my panties.

Well, I did need to do laundry, it was true. I watched as his fingers splayed over the faded jolly old elf, and dipped under the elastic, where things were getting very wet.

I lunged at his shirt, unbuttoning, pushing it off him. “Get your pants off.”

He stood to undo his khakis. His cock sprang free, waving around a bit as though just woken and taking a look around. Hmm, nice day, nice warm temperature, glad to be out of those boxers, and is that a pussy I see before me?

I touched my clit through the cotton of my panties, while he shoved pants and boxers down, and toed off his sneakers and socks. I’d taught him that: always get your socks off, Hugh. There’s nothing as dumb as a guy with an erection in a pair of socks.

He watched my finger, my middle finger, the one I always used. “Dirty girl,” he said softly. “Such wet panties, too.”

I spread my legs a little more. “I can’t think how that happened.” I slid my finger beneath the elastic, where his finger had tickled and stirred. My clit was hard. I wanted to come. I wanted him to watch me. I wanted him inside me, that shiny pink cock all ready for me. I wanted his finger and tongue tickling me in rude and naughty places.

“I want—” I said, and Hugh shoved his cock into my mouth. Obviously that’s the sort of thing you did to a dirty girl who played with herself in front of you, and hadn’t had the foresight to put on her special lace or silk panties, but sported her Christmas cottons (slightly grayed and ragged ones at that) two months early. Besides, I was right at crotch level, with my mouth half-open while I considered taking an orgasm before he obliged.

I made a sound of mingled surprise and appreciation and clapped my hands to his nicely toned butt, my nose squished into his pubic hair, and swirled my tongue around his cock. I knew how he loved that, how he would groan and thread his fingers through my hair, and mutter a filthy stream-of-consciousness litany as he rocked in and out of my mouth.

“Oh God yes oh God baby that’s right oh yes oh God yes oh yes like that keep doing that oh God Jo oh God baby make me come oh yes come in your mouth oh yes oh yes …”

And as dumb as he sounded, it made me hot. Made me squirm against the sodden crotch of my Santa panties and groan along with him, while reminding myself that absolutely no way was he going to have the privilege of coming in my mouth, not when there was work to be done below. My hands were busy with him, sliding to stroke his balls and thighs, to probe and tickle and pinch. Now and then one of my nipples would rub against his thigh, bounce off muscle and wiry hair and send an unmistakable signal to my clit—get ready for takeoff—but all I could do was wriggle and rub myself against the roughness of the sofa upholstery.

I pulled free. Now. We were so attuned to each other that I didn’t have to say it, but Hugh, in a brilliantly executed choreography of lust, lunged for his pants on the floor and pulled a condom from his wallet.

A series of reactions rushed through my mind as he ripped it open.

He brought a condom.

What the hell, I want him to fuck me.

But he came prepared.

Very sensible, given the stick insect.

Or does he always have them in his wallet?

Oh, look at him slide it over himself. So sexy to see him handle his cock. I should have asked him to do it for me more often.

Did he always have condoms, even when he was living with me?

But he came here meaning to fuck me. Or fuck someone sometime—

“Hugh,” I said, and he took it as an invitation, which in a way it was—an invitation to stop me thinking.

The Santa panties hit the floor and Hugh reared over and in me, my butt on the edge of the sofa, legs over his shoulders.

“Nice?” he panted. “Nice for the little lady?”

“Oh, yes. Nice.” The little lady was being serviced, no question, fucked and screwed and impaled and penetrated and all the rest of it.

So good, so familiar, so very rude, in the middle of the afternoon with the front door open and me still wearing my socks (actually a pair of Hugh’s but I didn’t think he’d want to claim these fraying relics with a hole in one heel).

He bent his head to suckle one breast and then the other, sending me a notch higher. And higher, so that I stopped thinking about socks and DVDs and random condoms, everything except Hugh’s mouth and cock and his fingers on my clit.

And I was there, torqued up to the breaking point and then breaking and flooding as I came, while Hugh kept me there as long as he could. Then he gathered himself and plunged away in his familiar oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-come home run, short staccato stabs that—other than postorgasm—didn’t do a thing for me. He collapsed with a groan on top of me, folding me up like a pretzel.

“Nice?” I stroked his shoulder, damp with sweat.

He gave a primeval grunt.

“Uh, I can see this isn’t a good time. Would you like me to come back later?”

At the sound of the unfamiliar Irish lilt, we both froze.

Then Hugh leaped to his feet. “Who the fuck are you? What the hell are you doing here?”

I grabbed Hugh’s shirt to cover myself as I remembered, too late, the appointment I’d made. “Patrick … someone?”

Patrick someone, standing at the front door, smirked and blinked behind steel-rimmed glasses.

“Ah, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Patrick said. He glanced at my panties on the floor. “Merry Christmas.”

“Jesus Christ!” Hugh spluttered.

I tried to restrain a giggle at Hugh, standing outraged, cock deflating and wobbly; a giggle did escape as the condom dropped to the floor with a splat.

“Who was that—that leprechaun?”

“He can’t help being Irish. He was here to look at the apartment.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t carry the mortgage on my own.”

For an economist, Hugh was sometimes pretty stupid.

“But—but, you won’t be on your own. I’m moving back in.” He paused. “Aren’t I? I mean, after … this.”

“Hugh, you came to get your skis and DVDs. A fuck doesn’t give you permission to move back in.” I retrieved panties, T-shirt and jeans, and dressed.

Hugh, apparently realizing nakedness gave him no advantage, grabbed his clothes. “Jo, at least we should talk about it. I mean, we love each other. I’m sorry about … you know. Everything.”

“No.”

Brady, tail aloft, trotted into the living room and sniffed at the condom on the floor as though discovering some delicious edible.

“You fucking cat,” Hugh said as Brady wound around his ankles, purring. Early on, Brady had decided that Hugh was his best friend and answered to fucking cat as an alternative to his real name.

“Who are you going to get to empty the mousetraps?” Hugh said with despicable cunning.

“I’ll handle it. I’ve been handling it for the past three weeks.”

I picked up the pile of DVDs and handed them to him. “I’ll pack the rest of your stuff and let you know when you can come get it. I have to go to work now, Hugh.”

“We need to talk about this,” Hugh said, looking obstinate and ruffled in a way that pre-stick insect would have melted my heart.

“No, we don’t. But Hugh, one thing. When did you start carrying condoms around? I mean, do you let them fall out of your wallet at faculty meetings to impress the Chair or something?”

I could just imagine the Economics Department snickering and high-fiving—You get lucky this weekend, Hugh? You da man, Hugh!—under the benign gaze of the Chair, a dead ringer for Alan Greenspan, horn-rimmed eyeglasses, wrinkles and all.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hugh picked up the condom from the floor and headed out of the room.

“Not in the toilet. You’ll block it.”

He stopped and turned to me, suspicion on his face. “How do you know that?”

“I just do.” Virtually anything blocked up the downstairs toilet. It was strictly off-limits to males and menstruating women.

“You bitch,” he said, and to my surprise he looked really upset. He flung the condom into the wastebasket in the corner of the room and flung himself and his DVDs out the front door. The effect was spoiled by his having to stomp inside the house again to get his skis. I sat on the couch, Brady kneading my legs, and listened to his car start and reverse out of the driveway and the sound die away with an awful sort of finality.

I cried a bit, then, thinking how tired I was of crying, but that you couldn’t let three years of your life go without some grieving. Brady purred and allowed himself to be hugged with a friendly tolerance that implied an empty food dish.

The bright fall day was fading now, but before I could go to work there was something I had to do. I went into the kitchen and armed myself. Knife, peanut butter, barbecue tongs (Hugh’s, and I might just forget to wash them afterward), rubber gloves, flashlight. Pants tucked into socks, in case anything was alive, and (aargh) panicked.

I didn’t need a man for this. Or for anything much else in my life.

“You sound just like the lady on the radio,” the woman in the store said. “We’ve got a new brand of organic peanut butter in. Would you like to try a sample? It’s really good.”

I am the lady on the radio. “No, this will do fine. Thanks.”

Sometimes, if I’m feeling sociable, I’ll admit to it, but then what usually follows is a disbelieving look, and a strange comment. I thought you were taller … older … younger … blonde. I hate your fundraising drives. Why do you play so much Tchaikovsky? Why don’t you ever play any Tchaikovsky?

Once, inexplicably and with great indignation, I thought you were black.

I packed my mousing supplies and my sandwich and soup and fruit for the night in my backpack and started putting on my bike gear again—gloves, the sort of knit hat favored by hunters and rapists, helmet and a scarf to fill the gap between the hat and my lightweight down jacket. Around me, at the checkout, others were doing the same, some with huge backpacks full of organic goodies.

In this pristine Colorado college town you wouldn’t dare drive two miles to work. I cycle.

Neither, of course, would you dare to do anything other than humanely trap rodents and release them into a gorgeous wilderness setting. Never mind that they’d have a matter of minutes to appreciate their new home before they became someone else’s dinner—it would be natural. It’s my deep, dark secret, sending mice to Nirvana on a delicious peanut-butter fantasy (and they certainly weren’t getting the organic stuff; my sentimentality only goes so far, and besides my concern was with ending, not enriching, their brief rodent lives).

Fall was definitely in the air now, crisp and wood-smoke-scented. Any day now we’d have some snow, and then I’d cross-country ski to the radio station. Funny how I never thought that the difference between Hugh and me could be so clearly defined by our choice of winter activities. He favored the mechanical assistance uphill and the short flashy burst of excitement of the downhill run, over in mere minutes. I enjoyed the diddling around with wax (oh, okay, I admit it—I have actually attended wax workshops … I am a certified cross-country geek). You can indulge in a slow, lazy plod uphill, savoring Mother Nature, or depending on your mood, bound athletically up—either way, you have the long, delicious glide down.

Not that it had anything to do with our sex life, which was pretty good, or more than good most of the time. Quite often I’d prefer the short flashy sessions on the kitchen counter or in the shower or … I wriggled around on my bike seat, wondering if it really was possible to have an orgasm by going over bumpy parts of the bike path, and whether it would be safe to do so. I could imagine myself hearing the local news, to my shame, from a hospital bed.

A massive, multibike pileup on the Douglas Pine Bike Trail resulted in several injuries today. The alleged perpetrator, Jo Hutchinson, a local radio personality who is neither blonde nor tall, showed signs of recent sexual arousal at the hospital. A spokesperson for the police department commented, “This sort of irresponsible behavior is something we take very seriously….”

I unlocked the back door of the radio station and wheeled my bike inside. Other bikes were still there; I was early tonight. The news was on and I listened to it briefly as I peeled off my bike gear. I had an hour before going on air, and later, in the wee hours of the morning, I planned to indulge in another of my deep dark secrets, one that did not involve the untimely demise of mice.

In my own way, I had been as unfaithful as Hugh, and with someone whose name I didn’t even know.

2

AT PRECISELY SIX MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT MY time was my own, with the last of the news headlines delivered from faraway Washington, D.C. I chatted briefly on air about the weather, a chilly night but with another perfect fall day in store for tomorrow, and the likelihood of the aspens peaking. I brought music swelling into the studio, and checked the dance of the monitor. All was well.

As I switched the mic off the phone rang.

He’s early.

I turned down the studio speaker and removed the headphones. My heart pounded as I answered the phone.

“Jo, honey, what are you doing Friday night?”

“Kimberly!” Despite my initial disappointment I was glad to hear from my best friend, a displaced Texas blonde who ran the station fundraising; a workaholic with a busy social life, she was often awake at odd hours—my hours.

“I have someone for you to meet. A man.” May-un, her voice dipped suggestively.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to meet any men.”

“You should for the sake of the environment. All those electrical devices buzz buzz buzzin’ away in your bedroom. You’re your own little brown cloud.”

The studio door opened. Jason, the assistant station engineer, stood there, buckling his bike helmet under his chin.

“Hold on, Kim.” I turned to him and smiled, for the sake of seeing him look adorably shy and give me a dazzling smile in return. “Hey, Jason. What’s up?”

“Hey, Jo. I just wanted to tell you I’m going home, so you’re on your own.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

He closed the door.

“Ah, the delectable Jason,” Kimberly purred. “You and him alone in that big ole radio station. Why, if it was me I’d eat him up.”

“You’d terrify him.” The thought had crossed my mind, too. Lovely, lean Jason, all of twenty-one (young but legal!), with the obligatory ponytail, faded jeans, hiking boots, single earring, stubble—oh, my God, he was a walking cliché—shy and sweet and good enough to eat, as Kimberly so often pointed out.

“You don’t think he’s gay, do you?” Kimberly asked, as though preparing to revise her list of potential bedmates.

“No, but I wonder about hidden piercings.”

“Me, too. All the time. Now this man, he’s interested in the station, too, so this way I kill two birds with one stone. He’s very eligible, Jo.”

“For me or the station?”

“Both, and honey, I know you can get a volunteer in for your shift Friday, so you’ll find a ticket to the symphony in your mailbox tomorrow.”

I imitated her Texas accent. “I just luuurve a man with a bulgin’ billfold.”

“Oh, me, too, honey.” But the fundraiser in Kimberly was in full swing now. “With the ticket you’ll find a list of the people we’ll be meeting. Memorize their names. Prepare to be charmin'. You can borrow my black taffeta skirt again.”

“And the killer heels?” I asked hopefully. I loved that skirt, its suggestive rustle and the way it flipped around above my knees. Kimberly had an extensive designer wardrobe, as befitted a former Dallas debutante who married an oilman in the days when oilmen made real money.

“You bet. Hey, maybe you could invite him to sit in when you’re on air.”

I don’t think so. “Maybe.”

We chatted a little more—as usual, these days, I assured her that life without Hugh was progressing as well as could be expected—and after I hung up I realized I hadn’t told her the story of the peeping leprechaun. A pity—she would have appreciated the comedic side of it—but then I would also have had to admit that I’d made the grave mistake of letting Hugh drop his pants.

And that reminded me that soon I’d have to make a decision about renting the apartment.

I’d deal with that later. I fired off an email to my roster of substitute announcers asking for a volunteer for Friday night, and looked at the clock. Half an hour to go on Scheherazade.

He’d better call soon.

I walked around the radio station, checking that the lights were off and the outside doors locked; also that Jason and everyone else had really left. I returned to the studio, the quiet space with its white walls and racks and racks of CDs, the gleaming console and monitors.

When the phone rang and I saw the screen announce “no data” I let it ring five times, despite my admonitions to the on-air staff to always, always answer the phone within two rings (unless you were on air, of course).

I picked the phone up and answered with a hint of yawn in my voice.

“Jo?” That voice, warm and dark.

“Yeah?” I pretended not to know who it was while my insides melted away and my nipples protruded through my T-shirt.

“This is a wonderful recording.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Now I felt shy, aroused, nervous. I, who put thousands of listeners at ease, now wanted one of them to assure me that I was safe—safe and loved—in his presence.

We chatted for a little while about the music—we both stopped to listen to the silvery flute ascent and descent, a magical, simple motif, and argued whether that, or the violin solo that represented Scheherazade’s voice, or the push and pull of the waves, was the most spine-chilling part of the work.

“Have you read The Arabian Nights?” he asked. “No? Oh, it’s a marvelous thing, Jo. Stories within stories within stories, like a maze. Sexy, too, although translators censored it, until the most recent editions.”

As he spoke, I tried to place his accent. Boston or possibly someone who’d once lived in England; he had that clipped precision and diction of a Boston blue blood … some of the time.

A pause, and the sound of movement. “Sorry. I’m putting another log on the fire. It’s chilly tonight.”