It was distracting how attractive this realtor was. The entire time we were walking through the open house, I couldn’t stop staring at his ass, his hands, his lips. The way he was dressed, the scent of his cologne. He was lean, tanned, bald, and clean-shaven with a slight shadow.
“... any questions?”
I blinked. “Sorry?”
He grinned. Damn him. Damn… Damn… Damn him!!!
“I didn’t hear what you said," I replied.
“I know. You’ve been staring at my body for most of this tour.”
“Sorry if I offended you.”
“Your appreciation of my aesthetics is not an offense, Mrs. Poundsson.”
“Good.”
“Tell you what, why don’t you take my card, and I can talk with you and your husband together, say for lunch tomorrow?”
I cringed at the mention of my husband. It was as if I had forgotten he existed.
“Sounds great,” I replied with a kind, mannerable smile. “Thanks for the tour, Mister…” I glanced at the card to read his name, “... Friarheart.”
“You’re welcome. Allow me to walk you to your car,” he said, and took the lead, walking us around the house until it led us outside. I found myself staring at my car with a sense of dread and disappointment that I had to leave this man’s, this Adonis's, presence and return to my tiny shithole apartment to the man I married. I don’t know if it was the affluence or his ass, but I had a glimpse into another world - the kind of world I felt I was meant for, the kind of world I reserved only for my dreams because I had seen no proof of it in my reality - like God.
Five years as an atheist, now I’m an agnostic with hope toward theism. I wanted a place in the affluent world he was a part of. Or maybe I was just horny and wanted his tight, perfectly formed ass.
“See you, Mrs. Poundsson.”
"Please, call me Sandrea.”
“See you, Sandrea.”
I reached for the door of my tin-foil gray, with-one-green-door sedan, and swallowed my shame as I started the car and drove away from what might have been the most perfect house for me and my husband of five years, Sven - I hardly paid any attention to the house. But I was driving away from the most perfect ass I’d seen in a long time.
Yep. Definitely horny.
I wanted gourmet fine dining, but here I was driving off to my save-a-lot bargain bin knock-off. Okay, I shouldn’t be so hard on my hubby. He is good. He adores me. He worships me; I just wish he were a bit more … dominant in the bedroom. Is that so bad?
Anyway, it took me fifteen minutes in light traffic to get back to our 2300/month 1 bedroom 1.5 bathroom apartment. It was 1400 square feet and on the eighth floor of a sardine-can apartment building high-rise. The highest floor was twenty-three, for some perspective. I was quietly praying the elevator worked as I parked in our assigned parking spot in the underground parking for residents. I did NOT want to climb eight flights of stairs.
Making my way from the parking lot to the underground elevator, I was comforted by the metronome sound of my own footsteps. Halfway there, though, I heard the sound of some familiar moaning, and it stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Oh, Oh Delia, Oh … yes, Oh yes, yes, yes … Oh! Oh!”
Sven??!??
Turning on my magnificent Manolo Blahnik heels, I made my way toward the sound of that moaning, and there he was, Sven, palms pressed to the wall, with some woman two heads taller than him, plowing him with her organic girlcock - no silicone or harness required. My eyebrows rose, taking cover under my bangs, and I blinked, slowly backing away. To her credit, Delia, I guess her name was, stopped thrusting and swore under her breath before pulling out and running away. Sven was looking at me with his big, pathetic, brown eyes.
“Sandy, I- I can explain …”
I sucked my teeth with a tsk and turned away from him to go back upstairs to MY apartment that I was paying the rent for, to go take a bath in my bathtub and contemplate my next move. I wasn’t mad at this Delia; no, in fact, I wanted to thank her. I wasn’t insane for being unhappy in my marriage. He was clearly unhappy too! So unhappy that it had driven him to have an affair.
The elevator dinged on the eighth floor and I made my way down the hall to my apartment door, Number 842. Setting my keys on the counter of the kitchen nearest the door. I made my way to our bedroom with the attached full bath and closed and locked the door. The half-bath was his; the full bath was mine. He can sleep on the sofa bed tonight. I needed to think. I was angry but it wasn’t so much at catching my husband taking it up the ass by our young, hot, tall, gorgeous neighbor; no, it was that I was feeling like a guilty shithead for checking out that realtor’s ass! What a fucking idiot …
I reached under the sink of the bathroom for the bottle of wine I kept under there for emergencies. Taking a long swig before I turned on the water and started to toe out of my shoes and take off my bra, then the rest of my clothes.
Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I gazed at my body, listening to the water run in the bathtub and smelling the rose-scented bubble bath. “I’m a knockout,” I said to my reflection.
I was approximately 5’7” with curves in all the right places, small nipples, though, which annoyed me. My areolas, or as I called them, nipple halos, were huge in comparison, like saucers that took up my entire breast. And the freckle and mole coalition spiced me up pretty good. I looked like a slab of meat with too much seasoning spilled all over me.
I was told I have ‘good hair’ because of its loose curl and long length to the middle of my back, thanks to my mixed ancestry. I was part Caucasian (Dutch, German and Norwegian specifically) and part Korean and Black (All-American roots, hailing from Chicago, à la the Great Migration once upon a Grandmother ago). My eyes were grayish-brown with lashes so long that people think I wear falsies. I don’t; I don't need them.
My pubic hair hadn’t been shaved in too long, and …. I thought about how that spoke to the state of my sex life, and my marriage. I slumped; okay, maybe it did hurt a little that he went to another woman. Especially a woman I couldn’t possibly compete with. She was young, tall, and she had an intimate understanding of his anatomy that I didn’t have. I wouldn’t insult her by thinking my husband was gay. I think the real thing he was craving was … the same thing I was craving from him. Pleasure.
Whatever. I’d take my bath, enjoy my wine, then maybe we’d both have cooled down enough to talk about this. Right? That’s a sound theory if there ever was one.
___
The water was perfect. The bubbles were tickling my nipples as the air popped them slowly, as I lay there holding the glass of wine to my temple, soaking, thinking. That’s when I heard him stumble into the apartment. “Sandy?” he called out. I cringed. I hated him calling me that. I’d outgrown such a nickname. I am Sandrea. Sahn-Dray-uh. If anything, I’d be okay with Drea, as a nickname, it sounded more mature. And more … in control. And Control is what I was lacking right now. I missed it. I craved it. In every part of my life.
But now, in this lint trap of an apartment, rent was due next week, and another one of his “promising business plans” had failed again. I am working three times as hard as I should be to make ends meet and I did not want to see his face when I got home. Because I think on some level I’d grown to associate it with failure. He'd failed every business venture he’d ever come up with. He sank our nest egg, our savings, into the most debt I’d ever been in in my life.
I was lamenting. Lamenting about how I hadn’t just sucked it up and married that linebacker, Paul, from my art history class in college. He'd had a small dick and smelled like olives, but now he was playing in the NFL and his trophy wife was more shallow than a rain drop. I could have given him depth to come home to. And well, a really powerful moisturizer to cleanse his pores and so what if I had to invest in a powerful vibrator because he was too small to get me off. I’d take money over manhood any day at this point.
“Sandy? C’mon, let me explain. I’m sorry, okay, can we at least talk about this?”
I could hear him banging on the bedroom door. Rolling my eyes, I tipped my wine glass back and finished it off. Setting the long-stemmed glass on the corner ‘counter’ of the bathtub, I slid up, feeling the water slink against my skin, gone lukewarm now. I had half a mind to sit in this tepid water until it froze over from my brewing discontent.
Another round of his knocking, and another round of listening to him call me that insipid name. I had had enough. “Will you shut the fuck up, Sven! You already disappointed me once tonight. Don’t make it a marathon achievement!”
Silence.
Silence.
Glorious silence.
Then footsteps.
Door Slam.
Did he fucking just---???
The bastard left!
…
…
…
Well …that’s one way to be quiet, I suppose.
___
I stayed in the bath until the water was cold. I had drifted off asleep. I wasn’t crying or anything; I was buzzed and sleepy, okay? So I dozed off in my cold, soapless bathwater, dreaming about Friarheart. Oh, his first name was Grant. Isn’t that such a powerful-sounding name? Grant Friarheart. He sounds like something out of a romance novel. Was that the appeal? Was that the attraction?
We were in his house … well, how I imagined his house to look. It was a big multi-level thing, on a corner, with a circular driveway and the outer walls were covered with creeping ivy. There was a wrought iron fence all around it. And tall thistles growing wild all over the yard. And a thin, narrow walkway made of brick or cobblestone. I walked up that path, wearing stockings and a mini-skirt, or a pencil skirt. A beret and a loose blouse with three buttons undone, showing off my tits. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and as soon as I realized that, it had begun to rain. The storm was as quick as my thoughts - of course it was; it was a dream - but I went from zero to soaked in a second flat.
Suddenly I’m running … sprinting up to his house. The longer I ran, the farther the road got. The longer I ran, the hornier I got. The longer I ran, the more my clothes started to feel like too much. I remembered from physics class something about drag coefficients and resistance, so I started stripping my clothes off, just literally ripping them off, until I was stark naked. And the storm stopped. The sun came out and there were birds and butterflies all over this transformed garden. Where there once had been thistles, were now tall marigolds and sunflowers, and an apple tree with a tire swing for some reason? And he came out. He was wearing a bathrobe. He was coming out to get the newspaper. And then he looked up and saw me. I tried to wave, but then … his head transformed into Paul -- in the NFL football helmet and everything. The hand that was holding a newspaper was suddenly holding a football.
“Hey, Dee, go long!” he called out to me. And he threw it. I was suddenly running to catch it. I was running for so long and so far that I dove off a cliff to catch it, and I caught it! I caught it. I was so happy. I felt so happy, in that better-than-sex kind of way, until I realized I was falling. I was falling in mid-air over the ocean. “Noooo!!!”
___
“Noo!”
I woke up thrashing in the water. It was pitch dark. The motion-sensing lights blinked back on, blinding me. I held up a hand to shield against the glare of the light on my eyeballs. Groaning in agony, I peeled myself upright and out of the bath, pulled the stopper plug to let the water drain and shambled my way back into the dark and cold bedroom. And as the dream faded from my mind. I remembered what kind of night I had had. I remembered Sven and Delia, I remembered how many times I faked it with him to get him off and it didn’t even matter. I felt my face frown up like I wanted to cry.
And I would have.
I was going to.
Until I heard the distant sound of the toaster pop-up toast through the door.
Sven’s home?
He came back.
I had to see him.
I had to see my husband. He was right; we had to talk.
And fuck it, I missed him. I actually felt bad about … telling him to be quiet and he left. I realized in that exact moment that I was afraid he wouldn’t come back. He had someone else on the side. He had somewhere else to go. What did I have? Who did I have? No one. Just Sven. And all his broken dreams and failed enterprises, stacked alongside my lofty goals and hopes.
I grabbed my robe and let myself out of the room. I turned the corner to see him in the kitchen. He was buttering bread, frowning. He was frowning. Now Sven isn’t ugly or anything. He's half-Scandinavian (hence the name) and the other half of his birth family (because he was adopted and raised by a very wholesome Irish Catholic family from Wisconsin) were second- or third-generation immigrants from Madagascar. It gave him thicker hair, almost wooly. He's got these soulful, brown eyes, and big pouty lips. He's all lean muscle and broad shoulders with angular, masculine angles on his body that would make a geometry nerd jizz his pants in admiration. He's a walking erection of erogenous zones for the eyes. An actual knockout just like me. That’s why this was so confusing and emotionally complicated.
He looked up at me. And his face … his face closed down. Mine did too.
“Hey ...” I said.
“Hey, ” he said. “You want some toast?” he offered.
“Sure.”
There it was. That small glint of a smile.
He nodded and took out two more slices of bread to put in the toaster. He pushed the button down.
The bread descended and then he looked back up at me. I didn’t look away.
“Can we … can we talk about … things?”
“Yeah.”
“Sandy, I love you. I want to be with you. I want that said up front.”
“Then why did you -- ?”
“I don’t know!” he said and covered his face with his hands, and shook his head. “I’m weak or something. I don’t know. I just … don’t know how to please you anymore.”
“Well, going out with someone else is a good attempt at trying to fix things. Good job.”
I was being snarky? Why was I being a sarcastic bitch when I said we could try to talk things out? Oh yeah. I was hurt … or something, right? Yeah, let’s go with that. It makes sense.
“I wasn’t going out with her. We just had sex, and it was only that time.”
“Really?”
“I mean, we talked in the laundry room and the elevator, but it was harmless, and we’re neighbors. I just … you’re hardly around, and when you are you’re …”
“Say it."
“You’re an avoidant bitch. You wear sarcasm like a shield and you’re shutting me out. I got scared. I’m always so scared that … one day I’ll wake up and you’ll have moved on to greener pastures.”
I scoffed. I had forgotten how perceptive he was. “You’re right. And it's funny you said that, because earlier tonight, when I told you to shut up, and you left … I think deep down. I worried you wouldn’t come back. So when I heard you out here --”
TOAST!
Sven startled when the toast popped up.
“Go on … continue what you’re saying,” he said as he grabbed the knife to butter the toast, on both sides like I liked it. I know it's weird, but it always felt incomplete to me to only butter one side of the toast.
“... when I heard you were out here, I knew I had to come out here and talk to you. To see if … well, to see where we stand with each other. Because to be honest, Sven, I don’t think either of us have been happy for a very long time.”
“I’ve been trying. You haven’t!”
“What do you mean? I am so trying! I am busting my ass off so we can live here. Every single one of your ideas have failed, Sven! Every. Single. One.”
“Does that include proposing to you, Sandrea?”
I blinked.
Well, shit.
“I … that’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s what you said. So tell me, do you regret marrying me? Should we get a divorce right now and call what I thought was being in love with you a lost cause?”
It was my turn to fall silent. I had no idea he felt this … resigned. Those tears that wanted to fall before - they were falling now. I saw sympathy flower across Sven’s face through the blur of my tears, and his shoulders fell, but he dusted his hands of bread crumbs and walked around the island to come and stand next to me.
Awkwardly, he reached to try to attempt to hug me but he faltered; he hesitated. And I just broke. I broke into sobs like everything inside me was revealed to be not made of gold and diamonds but just rocks and gold glittery paint. I felt like a fraud, trying to build a life bigger than my means like it would fill the void inside me or something.
“Sandy … can I … can I hold you? Or do you want me to just …”
I turned toward him and walked into his body, until my sobbing face was in his chest like he was a pillow. He wrapped his arms around me and it felt good. It felt like support. He felt good. I'd forgotten how good he felt. How his broad shoulders on his lean frame were deceptively strong. His calloused hands and the smell of his skin. He smelled like sweat, like man sweat, just raw and slightly repulsive in a way that was also attractive. It made my body biologically react to wanting him. Being horny, and aroused by how he smelled, but it wasn’t a smell that was pretty. It was a raw, dank smell. But also right now, he smelled a little like toasted bread and what I could only guess was Delia's perfume or body spray.
“I’m so-r-r-ryyy, Sven ...” I tried to tell him through my tears, but I probably sounded like a blubbery, incoherent mess.
“I’m sorry too. I love you, Sandrea. I really do love you. And I don’t want … I don’t want to get a divorce. I don’t want our love to be a lost cause, but if you wanted that, I’d --”
“No,” I said, pulling apart from him, shaking my head. “No, no divorce, no, please, I know we have problems but I don’t … I don’t want a life without you in it, Sven,” I said, and the moment I said it - it felt like the truest thing I had ever said in my whole life.
His eyes went wide and he exhaled slowly and leaned down to press his forehead to mine.
“Thank god,” he said softly.
I looked up at him, running my hands over his graying brown hair. And he shivered. “Oh, thank god. I was so worried you were done with me.”
“Is that why you fucked Delia?”
“I don’t know. I wasn't … I wasn’t trying to replace you. I just wanted … I wanted to feel good.”
“By taking it up the ass?”
“Yeah. It’s a different kind of orgasm … prostate stimulation.”
“So it’s not good when you’re fucking my pussy?”
Sven sucked in a breath and gave me a look. His eyes narrowed and his lips kind of shrugged. “Not when you’re faking it.”
“How can you tell when I’m faking it?”
“I can tell.”
“How?!”
“Because I’m in love with you. I can tell when you’re lying to me. I can tell when your body is lying to me. I can tell when I’m not pleasing you. I feel like most of my relationship with you, the main thing I have learned is how to displease you. Everything I do … displeases you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh really? Name one thing I’ve ever done that gave you pleasure. Just one.”
I took a deep breath. The fact that I had to think about this was … not a good sign.
“You have done better than most at eating me out.”
Sven scoffed a laugh and pulled apart but kept holding my arms. “Better than most? Is that as close as I’ve gotten to pleasing you? I mean, we’ve known each other for seventeen years, and married for five of those years. What do I have to do to make sure you are deeply, thoroughly, and undeniably satisfied?”
Oh, I don’t know, win the lottery and become a multi-billionaire? I instantly thought. But I didn’t say it. How could I? He frowned. “What is it? There’s something you just thought of; tell me.”
I bit my lip and turned away from him. “Our toast is getting cold … we should …”
He gripped my arm as I turned away, trying to go around the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, and the hallway space where we were standing, that led to the bedroom and the half-bath.
“Sandrea … please, just tell me?”
I sighed. “Earlier today … I thought it was if you were a bit more dominant in bed. But I don’t think that's it. I think it’s all of this struggle about money … your failed business ventures, the fact that I’m working so hard to live in this apartment that we barely have time to live in and decorate. And enjoy being here … it’s taken a toll on my libido. So if you were rich, if we were somehow rich, financially stable, with the kind of house, not apartment but house, of my dreams, decorated to the level of my most elaborate fantasies, then … I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t just blame you for everything and … be unable to orgasm because I’ve built up this association in my head that you will fail at everything, including making me cum, and it just became this self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Sven exhaled slowly. “Wow.”
“You asked.”
“Yeah, no, yeah, I did. I did ask. I just didn’t realize it was …. that.”
“What did you think I was going to say, Sven?”
“I thought … maybe I was just … too … insecure?”
“That may be part of it, but I think … it is mostly the money stress making it hard to find pleasure in anything else right now.”
“What do we do about this?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a bite of toast.
“I mean, what do we do about this? I can’t magically become rich overnight. I mean, my business sense is not the luckiest, but maybe I can reach out to some investors and rebuild my portfolio and ---”
It was at that moment, when he was rambling about investments and strategizing about financial plans, that I realized I was getting hot again. I was getting turned on listening to the way his mind was thinking about money, financial stability and trying to figure out a way to get me what I wanted: that affluent life of wealth and luxury. I was hanging on every word, and looking at the way his brow was furrowed. He was so focused and intent on thinking about it.
“Sandy?”
“Sandrea?”
Distantly, I heard my name, but it was like a whisper in another room. I was so turned on. I felt like my mind was just gray powder, like brain bouillon. My clit felt like it was trying to grow into a penis; it was so hard and protruding out of my lower lips. I felt slick and slippery, dripping this g-spot gel down my thighs.
“Sandrea!!”
I gasped. And looked at my husband.
“What the fuck just happened to you ?”
“I ... don’t know.”
“Are you sure? You look … well, you look aroused.”
“I am.”
“You are! You really, really are,” Sven whispered. The awe in his voice made me wonder how often I faked it with him that he could somehow tell when I was faking it and when I was turned on but still speak in a tone like it was the first time he'd seen me in this state.
“Money,” I rasped. “You were talking about it. Thinking about it. And I got so hot. I’m so wet …”
“Money turns you on … The subject of it? Talking about it?”
“You, specifically. Talking about it. To please me. Trying to … find a way to …”
I was gripping the counter now. I watched Sven get real still like he was afraid to do something or anything that would break the spell of my arousal.
“Sandrea?"
"Hmm?"
"You are the biggest and best investment I will ever make. I will do whatever it takes to get you the affluent lifestyle you desire. You have my word.”
He called me an investment. I felt something wet squirt out between my legs and my breath felt like it was being held hostage in my lungs. Any words ran from my tongue and I just … I needed … I needed him inside me. I needed him inside me and I couldn’t find the words to demand it.
I stared at him, gripping the counter like I was about to give birth. My eyes still felt wet from the crying from earlier. My entire sex felt like it was vibrating. I wanted it touched, stroked … but I couldn’t move. Sven was staring at me. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. And my heart felt like it was going to race out of my chest. I watched his long, agile fingers flip through the bill folds and take out a one-hundred-dollar bill. He folded it between his fingers and ran his other hand over the folded form of it.
“You want a down payment right now … I can oblige …?” Sven said.
I don’t know what sound I made, but I started to feel cum contractions, like my body spasmed, with threats of orgasmic tidal waves.
I saw him smile.
My eyes followed him as he made the walk around and into the kitchen.
“Let me put it down, deep … inside … the vault …”
I heard him unfastening his pants, and then lifting up the back end of my robe. Pressing his bulge against my ass. He pulled me against him. Tipping my head back, he placed the folded one hundred dollar bill between my lips.
“Is my deposit safe? Or can you make it safer?”
I opened my lips just enough to bite the crease of the folded bill in my mouth.
“That’s it, such a good little … dividend,” he whispered against my ear and then I felt him angle himself inside me.
“One thrust per dollar, does that sound acceptable to you, my Annuity?”
Thrusting, he was thrusting in my pussy, and I was counting them out. Knowing he had up to one hundred, but deep down, I wanted him to go over; I wanted him to fuck me with interest. And that thought was just unfolding the orgasm in me, like each knock of his cock against my cervix was a notch in the safe combination, to unlock the code that would make me cum. And I needed to cum. I needed Sven, my husband, to make me cum so … soo badly.
I heard him grunting with effort, “You’re my acquisition, my asset.” He nearly growled. And being referred to as an ‘asset’ felt more potent and more meaningful than when he told me he loved me. It felt like everything. It felt like the only way I’d believe that I was worth anything, that I was a priceless, valuable item of wealth ….
I gritted my teeth over the money in my mouth and just let myself surrender to my Investor. I felt his hand snake up my neck to pull my hair. I couldn’t help myself. I saw the bright light of brilliance within reach. We had more than equal power in this relationship. Sven and I, we had … equity. And that … gave me pleasure.
Complete and total pleasure in a way nothing and no one had ever given me before. I barely remember the strained screaming through the gritted teeth until he was pumping faster into me and the breaking groan shivering out of his throat when he pumped his load into me, and still holding me through my shakes and spasms.
It lasted like time had stopped. And when I came back to myself. He was lying on my back, as he had me in a partial lean over the counter. “Sven?” I whispered. The hundred dollar bill was sticking to my upper lip like a reverse moustache.
“Yeah?”
“You gave me pleasure.”
Sven chuckled weakly. "Thank god.”
“In God we trust,” I quoted and then Sven groaned as my body spasmed around him and he hissed.
“Give me a minute to catch my breath before we go at it again.”
“Mmm … yeah. Maybe next time we can fuck … somewhere … not in the kitchen?" I suggested.
“Deal.”
___
Several pieces of toast, a shared glass of wine, and a box of leftover takeout later, we were swaddled in blankets amidst refugee couch cushions on the floor, making out. His twitching cock was slowly thrusting between my thighs.
Intercrural sex was his favorite kind of sex. He didn’t understand why, but after the two explosive orgasms he’d given me, I was happy to oblige him.
He even kissed differently when his dick was between my thighs vs inside my pussy. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed my legs together, giving him a tighter grip, and his lips slid free of the kiss to grunt a long pleasure-wrenching sound over my shoulder. I could just imagine how his face looked - it was always a sour, pinched, yet goofy-drunk face when he came this way. His hollowed-out ecstasy had him suspended in the sensations of his own bliss.
“Ohhh! Oh, Sandy. Oh, Oh, Oh-Oh- Ohhh!” He moaned. And I ran my hand up the back of his neck and into his sweaty, greasy hair.
“That’s it.”
He moaned and thrust a few times more before he was starting to soften and he rolled to his side, eyes drowsy and sighing sleepily.
“I needed that," he whispered and licked his lips to turn and look at me.
“I love you, Sandy.”
I pushed some of the dark hair out of his eyes and leaned in to press a kiss on his lips.
“I love you too, Sven.”
His eyes closed and he smiled.
“Now that.. Mmm," he paused his words to re-adjust his body, pull out from between my thighs and re-settle his head on a pillow. "We got the heavy stuff out of the way. How did the meeting with the Realtor go?” He completed.
And I cringed slightly, remembering Grant Friarheart’s ass and took my own deep breath. “Well, he wants you and I to both meet him tomorrow to talk business.”
Sven dry chuckled. “Are you going to be able to behave during a meeting like that? Or do I need to fuck more orgasms out of you so you’re too dry to get turned on by all the money talk?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Don’t go making fun of how you learned to give me pleasure.”
“Why not? I have to keep my investment on her toes, don’t I?”
I moaned, writhing. “I like when you call me that, I think.”
“I noticed.”
Looking at him, “Say it again.”
“You’re the smartest investment I’ve ever made, Sandrea. And always will be."
“Why does that feel like a deeper and more meaningful thing to say than just telling me you love me?”
“Because it's catered to you. Specific to you and to me, to us. It says I see your worth and I want to help it grow. It isn’t some generic statement that society says you’re supposed to say when you are invested in someone. It strips that falsehood away and says what it really is. You're an investment. Our marriage is a financial contract. The payout is the happiness we find in each other.”
I shivered. “Yes. Exactly.”
I rolled toward him and caressed the side of his face. “I think I’ll still say I love you sometimes if that’s okay with you?”
I felt him kiss the top of my head. “Absolutely okay with me.”
___
I didn’t remember drifting off to sleep in Sven’s arms, but I did. And it was only the sound of my phone going off that dragged me back to wakefulness.
“Poundsson,” Sven answered, curt and business-like. “Yes, this is Sven, her husband. You’re the real estate agent she met with yesterday? … Yes, she told me you wanted to meet up today. When and where? Hang on, let me get a pen.”
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and sat up. I could smell eggs being scrambled and bacon. I glanced over at the kitchen to see Sven balancing my phone on his ear with his shoulder, standing near the end of the counter where the sticky pad and pen lived.
“Yeah, 9914 Weathered Main Avenue. You said it’s called what again? The Angry Bean Bistro. Got it. Yep. 11 o’clock sounds good. See you then. Thanks, Grant. Bye.”
I peeled myself out of the blankets and couch cushions, and wandered naked into the kitchen. I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him from behind.
“Hey, beautiful. That was Friarheart that called. We got a few hours to get ready. I got a head start on breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast, and a bit of those leftover fries. I softened and scrambled them in - as a kind of hashbrown or something to give us some fiber. I don’t know if this Angry Bean Bistro place will have good food or how long we’ll be there.”
“I trust your cooking over some restaurant we’ve never been to.”
“Thank you. I was thinking the same. Can I have my range of motion back to get you a plate?”
“Yeah. I’ll go wash up and get some clothes on while you do that.”
Reluctantly letting him go, I made my way back to the bedroom and the adjoining bathroom to wash up in a quick rinse in the shower. I dried off in a fluffy towel ten minutes later, and was rubbing aloe oil on my legs and arms and body before pulling on a tight pair of black panties. A short pencil skirt, open-toed heels with a short-sleeved button-up blouse that was frilly and puffy around the shoulders. I rolled my dark hair into a French roll, pinning it with bobby pins. And then click-clacked my way back out of the bedroom to eat my breakfast.
***
The Angry Bean Bistro was in upscale, yuppie, gentrified, former projects territory. Everything felt surreal only due to how glossy and new it was. It felt like a front for something insidious, a theatre set that could disappear overnight under cover of darkness, despite the brick-and-mortar build of everything. Old historic stonework from the 1910s-1950s, when this neighborhood was just forming with free settlers from the east moving west. The sun was a naked glare of admonishment in the sky, demanding a tax of perspiration and pinched expressions as heads averted from the beams stretching everywhere and hitting everything - like capitalism.
Sven was driving us there. The AC was broken in my sedan and it was a high of 92F today, so we took his Jeep, as it was already 90F and it wasn’t even noon yet. We arrived and miraculously found parking. It was metered parking. I scrambled to look under the seats and in the cup holders for any spare change we could find. He got out of the car first since his side was facing the street and he had to time when to open his door and step out to avoid getting hit by the passing traffic. I got out next, somewhat awkwardly as both hands were holding coins. He was glaring into the sun. There was a light sheen of sweat creating dew halos amidst his dark, wooly hair. “I think it’s one of those card tap ones. I don’t see a coin dispenser slot.”
“What?!”
“Yeah. It’s a card tap meter. I have to select how long I want to park and then pay by tapping my debit or credit card if I don’t have the meter tap app on my phone … What the grand larceny is this shit?" He exhaled exasperatedly. “Might be easier to just get the app than risk any potential fraud nonsense …”
I was already pouring the coins into my small purse, with a cringe expression of how some of the coins were sticky and that mysterious sticky had gotten onto my hands. I had nowhere to wipe my hands off. And it was hot. It’s so hot. I raised the less sticky hand up to shield my eyes and glance toward the Bistro.
“I see Grant at one of the outside tables with an umbrella. I’ll go and let him know we’re here while you do that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be right behind you,” Sven said in an ‘I’m focused on another task’ distracted voice, tapping on his phone to set up the meter app he'd just downloaded onto his phone.
I made my way toward the Bistro. Grant looked as stunning as I remembered from yesterday. His bald head was shiny with sweat, his shadowed yet clean-shaven jaw framing his perfect pink lips, his blue eyes staring at his phone. He was wearing a pin-striped suit with Oxford loafers and the golden-brown of his wedding ring was visible in a way that I hadnt even tried to look for yesterday. Next to him sat a woman in pink and brown. Her blonde hair was cascading freely over bronze sun-tanned shoulders. Her eyes were slanted and vibrantly green, I noticed as I approached.
“Hello! I’m Sandrea Poundsson. My husband Sven is just getting us parked. I hope we didn't have you waiting too long!” I said brightly.
“Not at all," the other woman said as she turned to look at me. She offered her hand. “Austynna Rhey. Austynna Rhey Friarheart.”
She had an accent. Somewhere … southern in the United States, which fit the double first name. It had a disarming gait, her words. I took her hand and shook it. Glancing back to see that Sven was indeed on his way, to my right, having just arrived at a bit of a jog.
“Do have a seat. We have much to discuss,” Austynna Rhey gestured with an open palm to the two seats across from them under the umbrella-covered table. Sven caught up just in time - handshakes and hellos were said. And then we both sat down right as a young Asian waitress with the name ‘Anh’ on her name tag approached us.
“Something to drink?” she asked.
“Ice water with a slice of lime, please?” I ordered.
“Make that two, extra ice for me though, please. Thanks,” Sven ordered.
Anh, the waitress, bowed slightly and disappeared to go get our drinks after setting down the single sheet of laminated paper that had to be the menus.
Grant reached for a drink that looked like it could have been champagne but it was too early for that. He winked at me, noticing his glass. “Ginger ale. I’m in recovery. Five months next Tuesday," he said and finger-rolled a sobriety chip like a magician over his knuckles before ‘making it disappear into his palm again.
“So, Sandreena …”
“It’s Sandrea. Sahn-Dray- uh. Not San-dreeen-ah.”
“Oh, my word, I’m so sorry. Sandrea, of course. Grant told me he took you to the Holyoke place, a beautiful bungalow, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, it’s … quaint. Has a lot of character but a bit too much of a fixer-upper for the asking price if it isn’t including renovations.”
“So you want something a bit more turnkey, is that right?”
“Yes, or just less of a fixer-upper.”
Anh returned with our waters. “Are you all ready to order your food or just sit with drinks for now?”
“Why don’t you give us a few moments to look over the menu, darlin’? Thanks so much,” Austynna Rhey said, then turned her formidable gaze back to me.
“What do you do for a living, Sandrea?”
“I’m a consultant for an architecture company.”
“And your husband?”
I tilted my head at her. Something about this exchange felt … charged in a way that made me feel like I was being tested or interviewed or sized up for something. I didn’t know what but … it was something. She only had eyes for me and only addressed me.
He’s sitting right there, I wanted to say, he can answer for himself. But something told me that if I did that, I’d instantly lose her respect. This was a contest of wills. Hers and mine. And I had to win.
“He’s an entrepreneur.”
“Oh. So, he’s got the eye for business and you have an eye for design. Well, don’t that just take the cake, pie and cookies?” Austynna Rhey giggled a high-pitched, polite giggle that did that kind of squeak at the end as she sat back in the seat and crossed one leg over another. She was dressed in a way that toed the line between slutty and professional.
Long pink nails, with little gems on each one. A pink polo shirt as the shell under what had to be a classic near-black but definitely brown blazer to go with the dark brown pleated skirt she was wearing. Her hair showed her dark brunette roots in a way that was intentional and not lazy or trashy, from the way it was salon-teased and bottle-blonde. Her eyes spoke to a mixed ancestry with the way her skin bronzed so well in the sun and didn’t burn or freckle like mine did.
“I’m sorry, I seem to be missing something here. I thought we were talking about real estate?”
“Oh, we are, honey, we are! It’s just that, well, if you just want an affordable but pretty house to move into, I’d leave you to Grant. He’d take real good care of you, and we never have to see you again, but I feel in my spirit that you and I were meant for more than that. In fact, if we play our cards right, you and I could make quite the formidable pair, as business partners, of course.”
“What are you talking about? And speak plainly, this isn’t Mississippi or whatever slow and sweet state you come from, Agustina Raye Belle … okay? So talk to me directly and say what you mean, or we’re done here.”
I felt Sven get tense next to me, but I was sick of whatever mind games this woman was trying to pull. It was hot, and I was getting sweaty and sticky, which is the worst kind of wet to be, if you ask me.
She smiled. It was a slow, sinister and satisfied smile. “Oh, you have fire. I like a woman with fire in her lungs. But sure, I’ll speak plain as Momma’s stuffing. I’m wanting to recruit you to work for me, Mrs. Poundsson.”
My eyes widened. “What?! Why?”
“Because Grant told me you were an architect after he met with you yesterday. I know I did just ask you like I didn't know what you did for a living. That was intentional, a test of sorts. Though in truth, I knew nothing about your husband's occupation. But you, I looked you up, Sandrea Poundsson, and I think you are exactly what Friarheart Realty is looking for, and then some. You and your husband. Though, I sense, he’s definitely more of a fixer-upper than your turnkey self, Sandrea.”
And the glance she gave my husband, like he was not worthy of it, like he was gum under her shoe, a thorn in her perfect wings and a shadow dimming the light of her halo -- it pissed me off in a way that made me want to slap her across her face with my own manicured hand.
“And so what, is this some type of job interview?”
“Don’t be so pedestrian, Sandrea. This is a recruitment. An opportunity of a lifetime!”
… a deal with the devil … I thought to myself. But I didn’t say that. Not yet.
“So what is it that I have, exactly, that you’re looking for? What are you recruiting me to do?”
“We’re looking to build our own architecture firm. And we would like you to be the chief architect. You could hire all your own people. And a choice of one of our on-the-market houses to be your first paycheck. After that, you'd earn a six-figure sum for every house that you’d design for our Real Estate Company to sell. Simple as that.”
“What’s the catch? There’s always a catch. This sounds too good to be true.”
Austynna Rhey smirked at me. “The catch is there is no way out. Once you work for Friarheart Realty. There is no other job. No other career. No other opportunity.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a promise. I have no reason to threaten you, Mrs. Poundsson.”
“So what, if I say no, you ruin all my job prospects because I said no?”
“Why would you say no to this? I am offering you your dream job with your dream house. And all I ask in return is that you stay loyal to Friarheart Realty. And do your job to the best of your ability.”
“Why do I feel like I’m making a deal with the devil?”
Austynna Rhey dry chuckled. “I’m a born-again Christian from the great state of Tennessee, raised by an Alabama-born Mama who now lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a Kentucky-raised Daddy, who is now buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. I have two younger sisters who want nothing to do with me, but that’s a story for another time. I’m just as human as you are. It’s a blessing our paths crossed, not a curse or some type of omen.”
“How long do we have to decide on this?” Sven spoke up to ask. Austynna Rhey turned and looked at him, giving him the fakest polite smile I’d ever seen in my life. “I’ll give you 48 hours to talk it over with each other and make your decision. But for right now, let’s enjoy a nice meal together, our treat?”
“Sure, free lunch would be great.”
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Grant said and then winked at Sven. “Though I suspect you were joking. As a businessman, you know all about the illusion of free lunch, don’t you?”
Sven smirked and nodded, “Yes, I do. Glad you caught the joke.”
“It was an easy catch.”
Austynna Rhey waved Anh, the waitress, back to our table. I picked up the menu and ordered something simple that I knew I would eat, or would reheat well if I couldn’t finish it. The last thing I needed was to be in debt to this woman over lunch before I even made a decision about joining her yet. She seemed to be set on having me on her staff, as if no one ever says no to her. And those that did didn’t survive in the same space as her. Like she was some sort of … witch or something. Christian or not. Something about her was just … off. And I was half tempted to say yes to her offer, just so I could figure out what exactly that was. Maybe that was part of it. Maybe others she had hired - signed on just to try to figure her out.
We had 48 hours. 48 hours to look into her and this Friarheart Realty. And find out what it was all about. And if I wanted to be included in whatever it was - for good or ill. Either way, my first paycheck being my dream house … was a highly tempting offer. I’m sure others have said yes from that alone. I glanced over at Sven, who met my eyes and gave a half-shrug.
This was too good to be true; it had to be.
… what would you do?
