Whackadoodle Times Galore

TWO-3

“I may never have s*x again,” I said.

“What about Hayword?” she asked. “Does he still have the wood, or is that why you go outside and play?”

“I’m not going to talk about my husband’s s****l prowess,” I said. “Or about my s*x life at all.”

“You should be careful with him,” Joan said. “Katie Williams has been trying to f**k him for years. She’s told me. She thinks he’s a saint for putting up with you. Apparently Ken does not satisfy all of her needs despite the fact that they look like Ken and Barbie dolls together.”

“Well, I wish her good luck,” I said.

Joan sighed. “The only reason I volunteer to do these benefits is because I keep hoping I’ll find someone to f**k,” she said. “But the waiters are all so young. They don’t give me a second look.”

I shrugged. “Flash some green,” I said. “I’m sure they’d give you a second look.”

“I’m not a prostitute,” she said.

“No, that would make you the John. Or the Jill.”

She actually had tears in her eyes. The last time I had seen her cry was. . . . Well, I had never seen her cry.

She obviously was not going to tell me why she had brought me here. Maybe on some level she considered us friends.

I went to the medicine cabinet and opened it, found a jar of petroleum jelly. I took it over to the tub, knelt on the floor, then took a gob out and began smearing it on her big toe as far up as I could.

“Mark said you were touching yourself,” I said. “What was that all about?”

“Wow,” she said. “That feels nice. Could you rub my whole body in that?”

“Don’t be gross,” I said.

“I had heard that men like to watch women doing it,” she said. “You know, to ourselves. So that’s what I was doing. Only I got a little carried away and that’s when my toe got stuck and I kind of forgot about Mark.”

I hung my head and laughed. “I thought I had a f****d up life.”

“You? You have a perfect life. And what I experienced in this bathtub was the best s*x I’ve had in years.”

“If I cared,” I said, “that would be incredibly sad. Now move your foot around and see if your toe will come out.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’ve been here so long I’ve got a cramp. You do it.”

I sighed, took a hold of her heel, and gently moved her foot back and forth.

Still stuck.

“What if it’s swelling?” she said. “What if they have to cut off my toe? I should get dressed so that no one sees me like this.”

“Let me get some WD-40.”

“What’s that?”

“Oil. I’ll be right back,” I said. I got up and left the bathroom and hurried out of the master bedroom and down to the first floor bathroom where Mark was working. He stood up from the toilet.

“There’s nothing wrong with this toilet or any other part of the bathroom.” He looked disgusted. “I could have been on a really big job today.”

I didn’t have time for his plumber’s angst.

“You got any WD-40?” I asked.

He pulled a can out of his big ass belt and held it out to me.

“You just happen to have it on you?”

“Um, yeah,” he said. “Half my work involves WD-40. No, more than half. Eighty percent. Hell, if you count today, maybe ninety-eight percent of my on the job problems could be fixed with WD-40.”

Oh my gawd. How much longer was he going to talk about WD-40?

I took the can from him.

“Do you know how to use it?” he asked.

“Yeah, don’t I just pucker up and blow?”

He looked at me. “No. You put that little tube where you want the oil to go and then you hit this button.”

Obviously not a movie connoisseur. At least not this morning. He usually got my sense of humor.

I didn’t really care if he did or didn’t get my humor. He f****d like he wasn’t a movie star. Which was a good thing. Movie stars f****d like they were m**********g. Cared more about how they looked and how they were coming and going than anything else.

At least that had been my limited experience.

Movie execs were fast and furious.

Writers inventive and insecure.

Politicians? Please. Impotent.

Directors. Hmmm. Sometimes too instructive.

Regular actors were too varied to categorize.

Although, really, I tried to f**k outside the business. Felt too incestuous or something otherwise.

Plumbers, electricians, teachers, restaurant owners. Male, female. I didn’t care. As long as they didn’t care, except for the short time we were together.

Not that I was promiscuous. That sounded like I was f*****g everyone in sight. Not at all. Not at all. I was fairly monogamous until it was over.

Oh Christ. I was staring at Mark and imagining him naked while Joan had her toe stuck up her . . . faucet.

I hurried away, went up the stairs, and back into the master bedroom.

“Where have you been?” Joan asked. “I think my foot is about to fall off.”

“Good,” I said. “Then this will be over.”

I got on my knees. I raised the little tubing on the can of WD-40. Then I tried to put it up the faucet, near her toe. I was at the wrong angle. I went to the other side of the bathtub. Still wrong.

“Maybe if I do it upside down,” I said. I tried that. Pushed the button. Heard something, but nothing came out of the can.

“I think you need to shake it,” Joan said.

I shook it.

“Now try,” she said. “You better hurry. I’m getting horny again. And you’re looking good this morning. Although you don’t have any makeup on. What’s up with that?”

Oh crap. I didn’t have on any makeup. I was dressed in sweats. And Mark had seen me. That was it. I couldn’t f**k him ever again.

“Don’t look so distressed,” Joan said. “You look good for someone who hasn’t had any plastic surgery.”

“Will you shut the f**k up,” I said. “I’m trying to get you out of this mess. I can’t find the right angle. I need to be closer to the faucet.”

Shit. I was going to have to get into the bathtub with Joan.

“No one is allowed in my bathtub with their clothes on.”

“Joanie, move your left leg over to the right. But keep the towel on. I don’t want a view with a womb.”

“All right, all right. Man, you’re cranky in the morning.”

She moved her leg up and over. I climbed into the bathtub. I tried to crouch between her legs and position the WD-40 so I could squirt it. The damn thing was supposed to work at any angle.

Finally I sat down, leaned over—with Joan’s left leg practically pressed up against my cheek—and I squirted the oil up between her big toe and the faucet.

“That feels nice,” Joan said.

I was about to give it another squirt when the door opened. Bernie Donning stood with his hand on the knob. His mouth fell open. He looked like a deer in headlights.

I could only imagine what we looked like.

Just then Joan’s toe slipped out of the faucet and her foot fell down, knocking me back into her, so that she was kind of straddling me backwards.

“Much better.” Joan.

“Good.” Me.

“May I join you?” Bernie.

We both looked at him.

I didn’t think he was joking.

We both started laughing.

Bernie closed the door, with him on the other side of it.

I pushed myself up off of Joan and got out of the tub. I held my hand out to her.

“I guess Bernie is a little lonely himself,” I said.

Joan took my hand and I pulled her up. She got out of the tub, wrapped the towel around herself, and then looked down at her toe.

“It’s a little sore,” she said. “But I’ll live.”

I picked up the cigarette stub and put it in the trash. Not sure why I did that.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” she asked. She put her arms around me and hugged me tightly. I could feel her hard breasts squishing up next to my . . . lower breasts. “You’re the only one in this whole place I can trust. You understand life. You’ve had s**t happen to you. The rest of these women are a bunch of bimbos.”

Including you.

“We’re all a bunch of bimbos,” I said. “sss bimbos.” She still held on to me.

“Sometimes I’m just so sad,” she said.

I gently pulled away from her. Sadness is contagious, you know.

“Meaningless s*x isn’t going to make your sadness any better,” I said.

Wasn’t sure where that had come from. Meaningless s*x was a way to pass the time.

“Then I’ll make it meaningful by having a really good time.”

She smiled. The tears were vanquished. She checked her makeup in the mirror. “All right. I’ve given you enough thrills for today. I better get dressed. I’m sure you have things to do.”

I slapped her on her towel covered ass. Then I left the bathroom. Beatriz was standing in the bedroom.

I looked at her. “Where’s Mr. Donning?” I asked.

“He went back downstairs,” she whispered. “I told him there were cookies. She does this kind of thing for attention sometimes, you know.”

We walked out of the bedroom and into the hall.

No, I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know.

“And her wanting attention from that boy,” Beatriz said. She made a face. “She would look so foolish.”

I glanced at her. Did she know about Mark and me?

“He’s hardly a boy,” I said. “And—”

She looked at me as we walked down the steps.

“Never mind,” I said. “I’m glad everything worked out.”

At the bottom of the steps, Beatriz went toward the kitchen while I went out the front door. I walked down the long curving drive. When I was almost at the end, I saw Mark’s truck. He was leaning against it, his arms crossed over his tight white T-shirt. He shook his head when he saw me.

“You went running,” I said.

“No, I finished my work,” he said. “I always finish my work. Not that there was much to do. Some days it’s tough. You have no idea how many of these old women come on to me.”

I stopped about five feet from him. I had to stay at least this far away. Otherwise I’d want to touch him.

“I can imagine,” I said.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “You’re nothing like them. And I went after you.”

“Makes me sound like I was prey and you were the predator,” I said.

It didn’t really sound that way. And it didn’t feel that way. But I was so used to stroking men’s egos that I did it without thinking.

He reached a hand out toward me. Apparently he didn’t notice or care that I was dressed in sweats and hadn’t put on any makeup. I guess I could f**k him again.

When I didn’t move toward him, he dropped his arm to his side.

“You want to pick up lunch for us?” I asked.

“I could make you something,” he said. “I make the best omelettes. I used to want to be a chef, you know, before I went into the family business.”

I smiled. “I don’t want you to cook for me, Mark; I want you to f**k me.”

“I can do both.”

I laughed.

“Isn’t the way to a woman’s heart through her stomach?” Mark asked.

I shook my head. “For one thing, I don’t have a heart, so there’s no sense searching for it. For another, I can cook, sort of. Violeta can cook, sort of. This new homeless person Hayword has brought into our house can cook. But none of them can f**k me like you can.”

I walked toward the road and let my hand lightly touch his T-shirt near his belly as I walked past.