Life Unbothered Page 8

  “I’ve put a lot of time in you and I just turned twenty-four. It’s my time to have a good life with nice things. You want me to throw that all away?”

  A good life…nice things. Things were important to Pamela, or rather the appearance of nondescript material stuff. Marriage wasn’t a question of happiness; it was an affirmation of affluent normalcy.

  “Pamela, would you want to be with me if I had no money?” I asked.

  Pamela hesitated, and I had the distinct feeling she was contorting her face.

  “Well, I think you still have money, so I wouldn’t know. You’ll probably always have money, and after what I’ve put up from you, I deserve to live a life like all those rich bitches who used to bring their fancy cars down to your shop for cleaning.”

  “You know, you were so much nicer at the beginning of our relationship,” I said.

  “What the fuck do you expect? I was going to get married and you decided not to. I can’t believe I even called tonight. I can’t believe I was going to marry you. You’re useless, you know that?”

  “I’m beginning to figure that out.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t care about throwing away our relationship. If you don’t want to come over, then I’m going to move too. Probably back to Michigan.”

  “You do that, Pamela.”

  Pamela snorted into the receiver. “Oh fuck you! You don’t even care.”

  “It’s not that, Pamela, it’s—”

  “I’m going to move. Since I have to pay rent now, you owe me some money and I’ll need some cash to leave your sorry ass and this state.”

  When I was about to ask Pamela about how much money she needed, the doorbell chimed two loud rings. I stumbled to the front door with the phone in my hand. I pushed my eye against the peephole and saw my neighbor Colleen on the other side. Despite the skewed proportion from the curvature of the eyehole, she looked as good as ever. I scanned the stunning full-length black sequin dress she was wearing before drawing my face away from the front door.

  “Uh, Pamela, the movers are here to give me a quote, so I’ve got to go.”

  “Movers? Fucking movers? It’s eight o’clock at night, what kind of movers work at this time?”

  “Very diligent and nice ones,” I answered.

  “So you’re really going. Forget about the money you owe me, I’ll just pawn the ring. Have a nice life, shithead.”

  Click.

  When my phone screen went blank and Pamela’s name disappeared, I dropped it on the kitchen counter and went to greet Colleen at the front door.

  “Got your message,” she said. “I just returned from a charity benefit.”

  “Wow, you look great,” I said, once again eyeing her black sequin dress.

  “You always say that. I could be strangling you and you’d say I looked great.”

  “No… that’s when you’d look breathtaking.”

  She nodded her head. “Good choice of words. Where’ve you been?”

  “In Los Angeles.”

  “Well, I got your mail while you were gone. It started sticking out of the mailbox.”

  “Thanks. Sorry, I forgot to tell you I was going.”

  She moved her face closer to mine. “I see your cheek isn’t red anymore.”

  “Fortunately, Pamela throws like a girl.”

  Colleen smiled as we gave each other a lighthearted ogle before she glanced past me and saw a portion of the empty living room. “So Pamela’s all gone?”

  I looked behind me at the disencumbered space. “Oh yeah.”

  She cocked her head and flashed me a cute grin. “You look tired. Why don’t you come over for some vodka gimlets?”

  “That would be breathtaking,” I said. “Let me just change my shirt first. I’ll meet you over there.”

  I entered Colleen’s house without knocking and sat on a puffy couch in her living room while she made our drinks. Her home décor was typical middle-aged divorced chic—truckloads of furniture way too nice for the modest house.

  “I’m glad you came back when you did,” Colleen said as she handed me a tall frosted cocktail glass. “I’m going to Nevada tomorrow for two weeks. My mother is having a cholecystectomy.”

  “Is that some kind of religious experience?”

  “I wish. She’s having her gallbladder removed. Pardon my vernacular, I was a nurse while you were still in diapers.”

  I stared off at her vast array of decorative furniture and became a little melancholy. This was the last time I would be able to see Colleen.

  “Well, I’m going somewhere too,” I said. “I’m moving to California next week.”

  “You’re moving next week?”

  “Yeah. Sorry for the short notice, but I took a job over there.”

  Colleen sat next to me on the couch and rubbed her eyes. “Oh… I’m happy and sad at the same time. I’m glad for you, though. You need a change.”

  “But I’m going to really miss you.”

  Colleen kissed my cheek. “You know, we couldn’t have kept this up forever. We’ve been able to have a very chemically charged relationship without screwing it up with emotions. But until Pamela left, I thought you were getting married.”

  “What do you think would’ve happened to us then?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, we never discussed it. I had planned to stop fooling around after you got married. What were you going to do, just continue having sex with the other woman?”

  “I’ve thought about it, but you’re just so damn sexy that I would’ve had a hard time letting you go.”

  “I know. I feel the same way. But maybe this is a good thing. I was so happy when you didn’t get married, but then felt selfish because I knew we couldn’t go on forever.”

  “I think the best thing to do is just enjoy the time we have left.”

  Colleen stroked my leg, moving her hand to my crotch. “God, you get me going.”

  She rose from the couch and walked into her bedroom. I put my hands behind my head and sat back as our relationship went through my mind. We never broached any deeply emotional issues while Pamela was still around. Our limited time together was mostly about the desirous sex and harmless conversation. Despite her age compared to mine, which never bothered me at all, Colleen was like a partner in an escaped way where we could enjoy all the intimacies without the daily burdens of reality.

  Colleen returned after she shed her black cocktail dress. A sheer pink silk robe replaced the sparkly outfit. In dramatic fashion, she walked in front of me with her arms extended.

  “You like?”

  “Looks great.”

  I arose from the couch and stood next to Colleen, slid my right hand through the front of the robe, and gently nestled my fingers between her legs. She bent her knees outward slightly and let me stroke across her. I tipped my head down and kissed her neck as Colleen moaned softly.

  “If you keep this up, my legs are going to collapse,” she whispered.

  She gently pushed me into her bedroom and we fell on the bed in a dramatically bouncy fashion. I rolled on my side to turn the bedside lamp on. She liked sex with the lights on, and so did I.

  Colleen opened her robe, the sides pressed flat on the sheets. I kissed both of her firm breasts before working down the center of her torso with my lips, not stopping until I was between her opened legs. After four minutes, Colleen’s body shook as her thighs clamped tightly around my head. For a few seconds I was deaf and suffocating—the headlock was pure bliss—breathtaking in an exhilarating way, not the usual reaction to the lack of breath due to panic. When her legs popped back open, I lifted my head and moved to her side while she recovered from her orgasm.

  “Oh, you are too good,” Colleen said as she rolled over on her side to face me.

  “The pleasure is entirely mine.”

 
“The bottom half of my body is still tingling.” She kissed my wet lips before sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Let me get your drink.” An overacted sigh blew from her mouth. “I’m such an impolite hostess; didn’t even bring your drink in for you before we had sex. And take all your clothes off. Stay a while.”

  I disrobed and placed my clothes on a large bedroom chair covered with swirling gilded upholstery. Colleen returned with my drink and a cocktail napkin. She placed them on the nightstand.

  “Here you are, Mr. Hampton,” she said. “By the time you finish this drink, I’ll be ready for round two.”

  I jumped back on the bed, gulped down the entire drink, and slammed the empty glass down on the napkin.

  “Round two coming up,” I said. “I love your tenacity.”

  Colleen had a seductive look on her face as she got on top of me and straddled my body. At forty-nine years old, she could be on top and still look terrific. A naked sensual older woman was a vision of beauty to me. Watching her from below with my hands firmly positioned on the soft skin of her midriff was pure joy. The ills of my drive through the desert whittled to nothing, replaced with the flow of temporary ecstasy. The drive never happened, there was no airplane ride, the panic attacks never occurred, the garage was never filled with exhaust and I wasn’t even in California earlier. Colleen was my Xanax as I watched her body drift up and down. There were no problems from within as my body pressed and released against the mattress.

  * * * *

  I woke up the next morning as Colleen placed a glass of orange juice by the side of the bed. Our nude bodies were sticky from the sex the night before.

  “I’ve never had you for the whole night. It’s nice,” she said.

  “I’ve never seen you in the morning. You look ravishing.”

  “Not breathtaking?” She smiled as I sat up and took two large gulps of the pulpy orange juice. Colleen stretched out on the bed beside me, her head resting on her hand.

  “So what are you going to do in California?” she asked.

  “Going to work for a friend.”

  “You know, I think it’s great you’re moving, I really do. You haven’t been the same since you shut down your business. How long has it been since you closed it?”

  “Just over two months.”

  “Why did you shut the business down anyway? I remember when you’d clean my car, the place always looked busy.”

  I nudged next to her and recited the answer I had rehearsed in my head so a cohesive response would always be ready whenever someone asked. “Basically, the business didn’t fulfill my expectations. It wasn’t a total financial failure, but after running the thing day-to-day for over three years, I got kind of burnt out.”

  Colleen kissed my forehead. “Why didn’t you sell the business?” she asked.

  “It was easier just to shut it down and sell the equipment. The business was debt-free, so it was an uncomplicated deal.”

  “No debt? How’d you get the money to start it up?”

  I gulped down the last of my orange juice. “The proceeds from stock gifted to me by my parents when I was younger. Originally, it was to help cover college expenses, but over the years, the stock gains were large enough to pay for college. Actually, with the gains and reinvestments, I could’ve gone to graduate school or even medical school and paid for it. But no, I wanted to own a business.”

  “I’m sorry your business didn’t work out the way you hoped. But you’ve been very successful with me.”

  “I have? Are you telling me the sex is good?”

  Colleen rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

  “I know you probably think our relationship is just sexual, but it’s more than that. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of girls flocking around you over the years. But underneath that beautiful skin of yours is a complex man. That’s the attraction for me—the sex is a fantastic bonus. And you know—I do love you.”

  I shot upright. “You love me?”

  Colleen let out a deep laugh. She shifted her eyes over to me, breaking her stare at the ceiling. “Don’t get paranoid. I’m not talking in the ‘let’s live together and get engaged’ way. Hell, I’m over twenty years older than you. All I’m trying to say is when you come over, we get naked so fast there’s not enough time to really talk. I want you to know how much you’ve meant to me. I’m not just some Mrs. Robinson.”

  “Well if you were, at least let me have a crack at your daughter.”

  She leaned over and whispered slowly, “Even if I had a daughter, I’d still turn you on more than her.”

  “You probably got that right.”

  “I’m going to have to pack and be out of here in a couple of hours to leave for Nevada. I just wanted to tell you that our friendship has helped me through a rough time. You basically kept me from losing it after my divorce.” Tears welled in Colleen’s eyes. “I was so lonely, though my husband and I hadn’t had a relationship for years.”

  I kissed a tear that fell on her left cheek. “And you helped me through my engagement,” I said. “So we’re even.”

  Colleen rolled on top of me and wedged her arms around my body. We kissed feverishly for a minute before she rested her head on my chest.

  “No, I’m not going to cry,” she said. “I have to remember I was going to cut you off after you got married anyway. So I’ll treat your moving like the wedding.”

  “Well, I’m not getting married, but whatever works for you…”

  “Oh, you’ve already done your work. Look, I’m almost fifty, and I feel better than I ever have. I feel sexier, more confident—and you are a big part of that.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know that. So what’s your sexy body going to do without me?”

  “Probably be stuck with old men. I guess I’ll have to settle for that.”

  “Don’t cause too many heart attacks.”

  She pulled her arms out from under me and arose from the bed. She sauntered to her dresser and retrieved a pair of red silk panties from the top drawer.

  “Something to remember me by,” she said, then dropped the panties on my chest. “Take them to California with you.”

  “I’ll put them next to me at night and dream about you.”

  Colleen returned to the bed. “That’s cute. But let me give you some advice since I’m an older, wiser woman. When you find that special person, within an acceptable age range of course, open up to her and let your heart go. That’s when you’ll reach the glory of absolute happiness.”

  “Wait a minute. I think that was too deep for me. I’m not sure if I got that.”

  “You’ll understand someday,” Colleen said. She sighed, then gave me a wry smile. “There is one thing I need you to do before I go.” She pushed my head toward her waist and wiggled her legs.

  “You want me to do it again, Mrs. Robinson?”

  “I’d love you to, Benjamin.”

  11. For Something a Little Different

  Over the next couple of days, I called a realtor to list the house, got the movers set up to take my stuff over to California, took care of my mail and online bills, and threw unwanted items away. All the while, I couldn’t shake one nagging task from my mind. The Xanax wasn’t working as well as I wanted it to after taking it per prescription since the morning I woke up in Colleen’s bed. Being terrified of experiencing panic attacks during the drive back to move to Los Angeles, I thought a companion could possibly help me get through the ride. At least if I did go crazy during the trek, somebody could drive the car to safety.

  Through a couple of sketchy references from licensed and unlicensed sources, I came upon a guy named Wink, or Dr. Travel as he called himself professionally. Dr. Travel apparently provided a turnkey logistic operation for those who had limited travel ability—physical or mental, it didn’t matter to him. When I reached him by
phone, the ruckus on the other end of the line sounded like he was at an early afternoon keg party. It was hard to hear him above the country music in the background.

  “I need to get to Los Angeles,” I said.

  “What?” It sounded like he pulled the phone away from his mouth, and in a barely audible voice I heard, “Beautiful, baby. Here’s a five for you.”

  “Wink?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. Call me Dr. Travel. So where do you need to go?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “Flying or driving.”

  “Driving.”

  As the country song continued in the background, I heard Wink say in a muffled voice, “Yes, I love cowgirls—here’s another five.” There was a subtle rubbing noise for a few seconds before he put his mouth back to the phone. “Sorry about that, just getting some work done.”

  “Can you get me to L.A?”

  “Yeah, no problem. Driving to L.A. You got the car?”

  “Yes, I need to get my car over there too.”

  The conversation paused once more as I heard him utter something. The only two words I caught were “table” and “dance.”

  “Okay… What’s your name again?” Wink asked.

  “Wade Hampton.”

  “Okay, Wade. What’s your condition?”

  “My condition?”

  “Why do you need me to get you to L.A? Are you in a wheelchair or something?”

  “No, I’m, uh, agoraphobic.”

  “Yeah? Perfect. I got just the medication package for you. I’ll get you to Cali with no stress or fear. This isn’t my first rodeo for that one.” Sounds muffled again as his phone must have moved from his ear. “Not you, baby,” he said. “You’re my first rodeo.”

  “Wink, I mean, Dr. Travel, I would like to leave this Thursday, in three days. Do you have availability?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! Oh yeah.”

  “So you can do it?”

  “What?” Wink asked. “Oh, you said this Thursday? Let me check.”

  I listened to the remainder of the country song playing in the background, which was followed by AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” Appropriate song for the situation.