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The dot on the screen moved at a steady pace as Judy sat in the bed, watching it with precision focus. Her finger touched the dot as it traveled across the small device in her hand. It had moved steadily for the past five hours, suddenly coming to a stop in Little Rock. Her sexy man and the lovely lady with the curly black hair were in Little Rock.
For another hour, she watched the small green speck, understanding that her new friends had taken a break to share a meal. Jealousy coursed through every vein in her body as she imagined the attractive couple adjacent at a table in some cozy bistro, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. Gabe.
My Gabe.
My Gabe is sitting there telling her how pretty she is and how lucky he is to be married to her. They are going home to have dinner over her nicely set table with matching dishes and coordinating napkins. He will open a crisp bottle of white to go with the shrimp she sautéed over a bed of pasta with a side of kale. They look like they are kale eaters. She can’t eat much and keep a figure like that.
Bitch.
She barely touched her dinner as he ate heartily on his steak and potatoes. A man like that wants meat. Chunks of meat and a nice set of titties like the ones I bought. She touched her breasts at the thought of his hot seed spilling over her nipples. Moisture formed between her legs at the sheer idea of taking him inside of her and riding him hard until he begged her for his release. Paunch would watch as she got her pleasure after she cut him deep with her second favorite toy watching the red elixir flow from his body. More moisture collected between her legs at the thought of his blood mixing with the smell of their sex as she lifted her body at the right moment, squirting her love juices all over him, seeping into the cuts.
Instead of me having a man like that, I am stuck with Paunch. Candy licking, sugar, junk food eating Paunch. He makes me sick to my stomach the way he licks me. I have to cover myself with some form of food to get him to do a good job of satisfying my needs.
“Judy, you are obsessing again. You know what the Doctor told you about obsessing,” Paunch said to her.
Her arm swung back, slapping him hard across the face with the open palm of her hand, almost lifting him off his feet.
“If I wanted your opinion I would give it to you just so you could give it back,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry, Judy,” he said, trying to gain his balance. “I think we should leave them alone. They don’t want to play with us. We have other playmates. Let’s just go home and call some of our friends.”
“NO!” she screamed at him. “I want Gabe. I want to play with Gabe. You never let me have any fun.”
“Judy,” he said, trying to calm her down. “Gabe doesn’t want to play with you. His wife doesn’t like me, and she would probably rather kill me than let me touch her.”
“You give up too easy,” Judy said. “I will make them want to play. I need a new playmate, Paunch.”
The dot started to move again. She watched the blip on the screen, growing more anxious by the minute. Tonight, she would have him. Tonight, he would be all hers. Tonight, Paunch would make the wife watch as she had fun with her Gabe.
The moisture was back again as her nipples hardened in excitement.
“Take care of me, Paunch,” she mewled. “Make Momma feel better.”
“Yes, Ms. Judy,” Paunch said, pulling back the covers. Judy moaned like a two-dollar hooker as he set about their normal routine of making Judy happy after she found a plaything. She always got so worked up until she was able to have a new toy. He also knew tonight she would want to make her move on their new friends in Little Rock.
They were headed to Little Rock tonight may be on to Memphis, depending on where the little blip landed. He would be ready to play. This time, he too would bring a special toy that he liked to call Jimbo.
****
THE CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL Library sat off Highway 30 in Little Rock, not far from the airport. The $10 admission fee was well worth it as Gabriel and Cabrina perused the exhibits on the Art of Africa and South African Leader Nelson Mandela. Cabrina quietly took in the pieces thinking how hard it must have been on Mandela to have been imprisoned for so long. Then she began to think of Tameka and how harrowing her ordeal had been. Now Tameka was a mother. Is the child the product of her abduction?
“Cabrina, who was George Brimmer?” Gabriel asked, trying to pull her back into the moment and being with him instead of simply standing beside him.
“So, you heard that?” She spoke as she snapped pictures of the mask on display.
“Yes, and the name Ricardo. Who were these men to you?” He asked, feeling an unfettered bolt of envy.
“George was a guy who wanted to date me in high school. My father thought he was an arrogant, self-center sociopath with narcissistic tendencies. He hated him,” she said.
“And your mother?” He wanted to know.
Her mother was a totally different topic she had no need or desire to discuss. It would only take one meeting between her and Gabriel for him to understand everything there was to know about Constance Robinson. She was a good mother who bordered on smothering at some points and over mothering in others. The fine line between a mother and girlfriend was always the point of tension between her and Aisha. Most days, Constance was sure which one she wanted to be to her ‘daughters.’ As an adult, the fine line could be welcomed. As a teenager, it became an aggravation.
“I was 17, Gabe,” she said to him. “George was good looking and a great athlete being courted not only by the colleges but also by the pros. Every girl wanted him for their own, but I was the one he couldn’t get, which made him triple his efforts to win me over.”
“This sounds like it ends badly,” he said.
“No, not really. I never dated him, and he got six girls in high school pregnant, all in the same week I think,” she said with a smirk. “With six mouths to feed, he ended up joining the military, which made him grow up really fast. Not that he wasn’t already too fast for his own good. George wasn’t my type of guy but I was in love with the idea of him.”
“And the Ricardo dude?”
“He was my type of guy,” she said. “Older, a sophisticated palate and, very well read. I was fresh out of college and an idealist. I wanted to discuss Ayn Rand and Sylvia Plath and the decay of the moral compass of society. He was the decay of the moral compass I was so passionate about since he was in fact married and cheating with me.”
“Oh wow,” he said.
“Yeah, wow,” she countered. “At 23, you think you have all the answers, but you really are just a child in an adult’s body, clawing your way through the muck, trying desperately to locate a pocket in all of the debris to pull in a whiff of fresh air.”
She looked at him, curiosity piquing her interest. “What about you and dating?”
“Me?” he said with his hands shoved in his pockets. “I didn’t date much, especially being in divinity school. Most of my classmates were members of churches for which they were training to head home and take over as pastors. The women they dated in college were there to become the First Ladies of a mega church. I found it all too hypocritical.”
“You didn’t date at all?”
“Not really. Looking like this, I didn’t have to do much other than show up when I needed a few hours of diversion, then it was back to the books. It wasn’t in my plans to pastor a church, so I maintained a low profile. I was a tool for the CIA. That is why I was in school. They were footing the bill so I learned to keep anything I did on the down low,” he told her. “I was almost twenty-five when I completed my studies and from there I went to Langley for training. My life has been of a pursuit of higher knowledge into the moral decline of society based on religious practices and beliefs.”
It seemed like an isolated existence which led her to ask, “At your house in Elyria, do you have a lot of friends?”
“None,” he said. “I can’t afford to have people snooping around, especially with all the equipment I have wired around the place.”
“Oh poo. There goes my first dinner party,” she said with a frown.
“Mrs. Neary, we will make friends,” he said. “You will have dinner parties with themes and wonderous centerpieces, and all the ladies will fight for your recipe for that baked Alaska you are so famous for making.”
“Don’t forget about the pie sale for the Autumn Solstice Fund Raiser, Mr. Neary,” she said with a smile. “My apple pie is destined to take the blue ribbon this year.”
She faced him in the quiet pocket in a moment generated by their sheer will to tune out the world. The faux scenarios modeled a life they both craved to have, but it would require work to achieve. He placed his hands on her shoulders, wanting to kiss her, hold her tight to him, and promise that everything would be okay. However, he couldn’t. That Neary sense was tingling and there were still so many miles to go before they slept.
“I seldom if ever ask for anything for myself when I pray, but last night I did. I prayed that you wouldn’t regret your decision in marrying me. Even if you said yes to get away from your folks or to start a new chapter in your life, please tell me, you don’t regret it,” he said.
“I don’t have any regrets in my life other than not stopping my friend from going to Georgia and picking up those two weirdos in Amarillo. You, Mr. Neary, I don’t regret in the least,” she said.
Cabrina’s arms wrapped around his waist, settling her body close to his, enveloping herself in his warmth. I don’t regret marrying you for one-minute Gabriel Neary. I don’t regret it all. He had a calming effect on her and seemed to have a similar effect on most people. She liked that about her husband.
****
OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY, Gabriel accidentally bumped into an older gentleman wearing a pea coat and a weathered plaid hat, whose face snarled in anger at the physical collision of the two bodies. The old man poised for a fight snapped ugly comments and shared a few sharp words with Gabriel regarding his inability to walk in a straight line. Taken aback by old man’s hostility, Gabe gave Cabrina the keys, asking her to wait in the car.
She didn’t want to leave his side, but he encouraged her to go on. She could see both men from the vantage point of the passenger seat while her husband spoke with the snarky old man. Cabrina couldn’t hear the words they exchanged as the old man’s arms flailed about in his efforts to get his point across to her husband. Her body was tight with tension, but then, she saw Gabriel take the man’s hands into his own. The gentleman’s head lowered as was her husband’s as he spoke. Ending his words, Gabe shook the curmudgeon’s hand, and the old man called to him as he walked away.
Gabriel steps halted as he turned back to see what the old man wanted. Suddenly, his arms went around Gabe in an embrace. Gabe was smiling as he hugged the snarky old man, wishing him well before he joined her in the car.
“I don’t know what I just witnessed,” she said to her husband.
“Nothing really,” Gabriel said. “I simply took a minute to share a good word with him. We all need to know every now and then that we are not alone in this world. I just took the time to remind him of the simple beauty in the day to day.”
“Okay. That was thoughtful of you,” she told him.
“In my head is a great deal of knowledge and information. I spend most of my days either listening in on other people’s lives or watching other people enjoy distorted if not fruitful existences. I don’t want what I know to go to waste while I’m pretending to live a life,” he said, cranking the car. “I feel like I am really just starting to live mine.”
“Is that because of me, Mr. Neary?”
“Mrs. Neary, you are a prime factor in the equation,” he told her with a wink.
“If you are not careful, Mr. Neary, you may find yourself drawing this hungry fly into your web of love,” she told him, touching his hand.
“Don’t draw, Mrs. Neary. Fall in, my dear. Fall all the way in, and Heaven knows that I will catch you,” he said, maneuvering the vehicle to the highway, setting his sights on Memphis. It was another three hours to Blues City and nearly four to Murfreesboro. However, he had one other fly to catch in his trap.
Judith Wright.
