Welcome to Grayville

Chapter 2: Becca in Lust

Chapter 2: Becca in Lust

Sometimes a woman has to do all the spying herself; this is what Becky believes, summing up her winter day while parked in front of a hulking garage door covered in black-and-red letters: Monkey’s Garage. Here, she waits behind the wheel of her Honda and she thinks: Tuckie Brice can be mine. This is what I’ve come here for. Forget about the tire rotation or when I need a rotation. I want the girl badly, very badly. All mine. And I don’t plan to share her with anyone.

Tuckie taps on the driver’s side window, stares inside the Honda, smiles, and asks through the glass, “Becca, how are you today?”

Does Tuckie really call her Becca? She does. Honestly, she does, which blows Becca’s world apart and causes her to feel slippery, unbalanced, and unable to grasp a sense of sanity.

How long does Becca sit frozen like this behind the vehicle’s steering wheel, unable to move, in deep contemplation of starting the car’s engine and driving home to her muffled marriage and eleven-year-old son who she believes is psychologically imbalanced? Is this fine? Is this unbearably crazy? Is this the life she wants?

* * * *

What she knows about Tuckie, who is currently doing things with her car that she wishes the girl would share with Becca's body. No siblings as far as Becca knows. No parents in Grayville since they live in SoHo. And Tuckie enjoys painting. Tuckie is half French, enjoys rugby, and plays the guitar. Also, Becca knows that the girl wants to paint for a living and have a show in New York City. Her status on f*******: says that she's single. She enjoys chocolate, Taylor Swift, cheerleaders, and older women.

The real question is simple, though: Does Tuckie like older women? Cougars? A particular woman who just happens to be in a damaging relationship with her husband? Someone Tuckie can slip under the sheets with and not come out for air?

Hold your breath, Becca. Hold it. Lust is just misery between a woman’s legs. You know this. You weren’t born yesterday. Hold it together. You should.

* * * *

She thumbs through a magazine about Egypt: gold hidden under the earth’s surface; King Tut waking from the dead; monstrous tunnels beneath the sand. But really, honestly, truthfully, she’s looking at the grease on Tuckie’s fingers: long strings of oil and smears of black grease; fingernails coated in the thick substance, very Goth-like and rather sexy on Tuckie. Working so hard. Bending over the Honda’s (Becca’s) engine. Fiddling with things, gadgets, and instruments under the hood. Tuckie’s bulbous bottom and voluptuous breasts all for her pleasure. Tight denim snug against the college student’s rear. Levi’s for Becca’s sinful pleasure. Desired s*x just for Becca. This could be a club for women and Becca Mantra is the prized guest. A cougar.

* * * *

Hooray for the celebration of infidelity! This is what transpires during her short trip to Monkey’s Garage. This is what she craves. This is her one-way ticket out of her husband’s Grayville. This is home free stuff.

“Becca, do you want to have a cup of coffee with me?” Tuckie asks.

“I think that would be very nice.”

“For pleasure, of course.”

“But of course.”

“And whatever happens afterward.”

“You’re teasing me, Tuckie.”

“I like how you say my name. It rolls off your tongue. It makes me sound older.”

“Tuckie,” Becca teases.

“Thank you. Let me finish up here then we can leave.”

“I’ll finish reading this article. Take your time.”

* * * *

The last two hours is a blur. Becca’s heart pounds within her chest. She’s dizzy now. She’s dehydrated. She’s a changed woman. Everything is nothing less than a spiral of confusion for her. Befuddlement. Bliss.

Two cups of coffee shared at Milestone Inn.

Talking straight through. Endless chattering. . Learning, digesting, and feeding on each other. Sponges within the Inn. Absorbing each other.

A walk ensues in Tander Park. Tuckie holds Becca’s hand. Tuckie squeezes her hand. Tries to calm her down. Tuckie says, “I don’t know why I like older women, Becca, I just do.”

Takes Becca back to Tuckie’s apartment. J-2. Second floor. Tuckie’s roommate (Fender) isn’t home. Drinks two shots of whiskey with Becca. Tells Becca, “Don’t be so nervous. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

* * * *

Youthful lips against Becca’s neck. At the nape of Becca’s neck. Against one of Becca’s breasts. Along Becca’s concave stomach. Between Becca’s legs.

Tuckie inside her.

Caution is needed. Who knows what other cougars Tuckie has been intimate with.

Under Becca.

Inside Becca.

Heated girl-breath against Becca’s rounded shoulder—huffing, puffing, and untamable.

Skin on Tuckie stinking, unwashed sheets. Dual contact. Arched backs. Perspiration covering stomachs and shoulders. Kissing again, heavily, hungry for something that maybe doesn’t exist at all between the two women. The faux relationship between an older woman and a college student who repairs vehicles. Lesbian lovers. Having v*****s in common.

They become spent. Both of them: quickly, hurriedly, and universally. At the same time. Pinned to this filthy bed doing filthy things together. Still under Becca. Still over Tuckie. Becoming spent together.

* * * *

The two lay side by side on the dirty mattress, heaving for breath. Their feet touch, as well as their smooth and hairless hips, yet they are unconnected, from different worlds altogether. They have nothing in common. No interests that mutually combine. No novels they can discuss after reading. No movies that they can share. Two women from different eras, opposites on so many levels, wholly.

Tuckie giggles, next to Becca, playful and sprite-like. Tuckie is sweaty and stinks of s*x. The student mechanic glows because of her s*x with Becca, happy, thrilled, and elated that she has found an interest in Becca. Tuckie proclaims, “You were amazing.” The comment shows the young girl’s naivety and innocence. Words that suggest she is immature, almost half Becca’s age.

Becca feels her stomach turn, souring almost instantly. Tuckie’s sweat clings to Becca’s breasts. Dots of perspiration are smeared on Becca’s stomach. Becca has become decorated with the young woman’s liquids like a canvas to an artist. Stung by Tuckie. Played with. Devoured. Tuckie’s means of release.

* * * *

“Wrong,” Becca whispers to Tuckie, whom she no longer considers a young woman. “This is wrong of me. I shouldn’t be here. This is sin in a marriage.”

“You’re not happy with your husband, though, are you?”

Becca’s not, but she doesn’t want to admit this to Tuckie. Jay doesn’t pay attention to Becca these days. He doesn’t talk to her. They do nothing together and Becca feels alone most of the time. It’s a horrible relationship that she sometimes wants to end. Her days and nights with her unhappy husband are unhealthy for both of them. This is why she is here, next to Tuckie, sticky and stinking. This is Becca’s escape, the world beyond her cheerless marriage with Jay. This is why she whispers to a naked Tuckie next to her, “I’m not happy.”

* * * *

“You can stay,” Tuckie says from the bed as Becca dresses. “I make killer pancakes.”

Becca thinks that Tuckie says this to all the older women she beds on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Doesn't she? It’s Tuckie’s thing. It’s her gig that she uses on Estelle, Gretta, Wanda, Cathorine, and ten other older women. Cougars in Tuckie’s bedroom. Other lesbians. Different lovers.

Becca can’t stay, even if a part of her wants to. Matty, her son, will be home from rugby practice soon, in less than an hour. He needs to eat. The eleven-year-old cannot cook his own meals. No matter if Becca is a straying wife or not, she’s still Matty’s mother, and she has to take care of her son.

Becca really wants to stay, though; even if the bedroom stinks of old pizza and ancient boy-ooze; even if the window is broken; even if there are clothes scattered all over the floor that smell like filth; even if she wants to be collapsed underneath the mechanic yet another time, and accomplish things with Tuckie’s youthful and caring skin that Jay hasn’t accomplished in the past six months with Becca, but she really can’t remember. She has to go. Now. And she does.

* * * *

“I’ll be back,” she says, leaving Tuckie’s apartment, promising the young woman another round of s*x. “Don’t contact me. It’s the price you have to pay for sleeping with a married woman.”

“Yes, Becca, I get that,” is all Tuckie says. Perhaps it’s the first thing that sounds mature and real, which throws Becca a bit.

“I’ll call you in two days. I have your cell number.”

“I’ll be here waiting.”

She must tell Tuckie not to wait, and not to be so cocky. Who knows if another student or mechanic will float into her life and Becca will willingly slip out of her clothes for her. She’s not the only girl she can sleep with behind her husband’s back. Becca keeps quiet about this; it’s better not to be rude; besides, she wants to leave a good impression on Tuckie. How can a woman who has an affair on her husband leave a good impression, though? Sin is sin. Lust is lust. What this event boils down to is rather simple: damning comes to mind because of her actions today with Tuckie. Becca has sinned. Becca has discovered lust for Tuckie. Becca has found Tuckie. Tuckie is the other woman.

“I’ll miss you,” the young woman says from the bed, still naked, and still so beautiful.

She won’t, Becca thinks while finding her purse next to the bottom of the bed. Tuckie has other women that she sleeps with; Becca knows this; Becca’s not foolish enough to think any different. Tuckie is a player. Tuckie will always be a player. Cougar meat.

“Come back, hey,” Tuckie says, grinning from ear to ear, sharing a wide grin.

Becca will. Someday. Surely, she will. Tuckie is irresistible, a magnet, someone Becca thinks and feels is medicine in her life. “Soon. Sometime soon,” exits Becca’s lips as she leaves the apartment and heads to her Honda in the parking lot, to the left of the apartment building. Gone.