Tears on a Sunday Afternoon - Michael Presley [4]
“Excuse me?” I felt the slight tap on my shoulder. I put my drink down and once more swiveled in my chair. It was one of the girls I had noticed earlier. She was the bigger of the two. I guessed she was five-eight and weighed about one hundred forty-five pounds.
“Yes.” My face showed no emotion.
“My friend wants to fuck you. It’s her birthday.”
I looked over at her friend who was holding the cheese stick. She had a big smile on her face. What she asked for didn’t mean a thing to me. I had lost my virginity at the age of nine to an older woman, my grandmother’s best friend’s granddaughter. Her name was Cindy and she was twenty years old at the time. The only thing I remembered about her was that she had smelled like smoke.
“And you?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, playing with my curly hair.
“How much?” I asked. My face remained emotionless. I wasn’t the only one wanting warmth tonight.
She stopped playing with my hair and stood back.
“How much?” she repeated as if her repetition would dissipate the question. “Are you a whore? Because we don’t want any whore.”
“Do I look like a whore? And if I was, do you think you could afford me for your friend’s birthday?” I pulled up my shirtsleeve and checked the time on my Movado.
She stared into my eyes. “How about both of us together?” she asked, signaling her friend, who was starting to get up.
“Been there, done that too many times. Unless your shit has gold fillings, this conversation is over.”
“I’ll be right back,” she said and headed over to her friend.
I took a sip of my drink and rested a hundred-dollar bill under the glass. She returned shortly and put her hand around my back as if we were old friends. I put my drink down. “Make sure you don’t insult me.”
“We’re willing to do $400, but you have to buy a bottle of Courvoisier as a birthday gift to my friend.” There was a stupid smile on her face. “Like the song…”
“I hate the song but I’ll buy the bottle. Let’s go.”
I left the bartender with a hundred-dollar bill for a $6.50 drink. It was never about the money; it was about the game.
I drove into my driveway at Mills Lane at 10:00 p.m., parking my S500 next to the red convertible X-type Jaguar in the driveway. As I stepped onto the pavement, a large black pit bull came trotting toward me. I stooped and rubbed the dog on the top of his head. He rubbed against my pants leg, walked with me to the large French doors and stood back as I opened the door.
“Thanks for picking up Emerald from school. You didn’t have to leave as soon as we came home.” My wife, Lauren Carter, stood in the middle of the living room. Her right eye was black and swollen.
“Is Emerald asleep?” I asked.
“Like you care. He’s been asleep since eight-thirty,” she answered.
I took off my shoes and put them in the closet. “I’m taking him to the zoo tomorrow.”
“Lauren, come here,” a husky female voice beckoned from the kitchen. I followed my wife, who bolted toward the voice.
“I thought I told you I don’t want all that mayonnaise on my sandwich,” the woman sitting at the kitchen table in a red nightgown said as my wife picked up the sandwich. That woman was my wife’s lover. “You know I don’t like hitting you, but you don’t listen.”
“Sorry, Annette, I’ll do it over,” my wife said.
I went to the refrigerator and took out a Heineken. As I passed by, Annette Hutchinson stood. She was a little bit shorter than Lauren and God had created her ugly.
She looked at me, challenging me with her eyes.
I opened the bottle and leaned against the counter, returning her challenge.
“What?! You want to do something about this?” She pointed to Lauren. “Go ahead and see if you won’t be arrested for spousal abuse.”
“Just as long as you keep your hands where they won’t be cut off. If I ever come home and find my child with so much as a scratch on his arm, I’ll take that artificial dick and shove it up your nose.”
“Stop it! Both