Read Dirty To Me

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3-7 Available On

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Chapter Two

He didn't cooperate.  He turned his cheek to her as his face neared hers.  He had said she could do this, but she wanted to teach him a lesson.  She couldn't do that if all she kissed was his cheek.

She had no choice though, at least not at first.  Her lips pressed to his cheek.  His beard was in the way, but it was soft.

"MMMMM," she buzzed loudly.  At the same time her left hand went up and cupped his chin, with her fingers on his right cheek.  She pressed with her fingers, and was suddenly kissing the corner of his mouth.  His moustache was tickling her nose.  "MMMMMM," she buzzed again.  It sounded like she was trying out for a soup commercial, to her anyway.  She pulled at his chin again and his lips slid onto hers.

Her eyes were open, because she wanted to see the look in his when she pushed her tongue into his mouth.  Her peripheral vision told her something was moving toward her face, on both sides.  His hands captured her head.  Half his fingers were on the clean shaven parts of her scalp and the rest mussed her hair.   They were warm, and she suddenly had the image of an NBA basketball player holding a ball that was dwarfed in his hands.

His lips moved fully onto hers, parted slightly, and they nipped at her suddenly slack ones.

"Mmmmmm," he went through his nose.  He sounded like he meant it.

His tongue flicked lightly between her lips, licking her upper lip, and then moving to her lower one.  It wasn't IN her mouth, exactly, but its touch was so soft and so tentative that it was somehow more intimate than if he was trying to lick her tonsils.

He pulled her face against his.  She could feel the strength in his hands, and she knew instinctively that she couldn't possibly get away from him without kicking and screaming.

She didn't feel like kicking and screaming, though.  This was a very nice kiss.

Her tongue flicked out all by itself and pushed lightly at his.  His lips sucked at the tip of it, closing.

"Mmmmmmm," he went.  He wasn't playacting.  The receptors in her brain that evaluated that noise said, "He really DOES want to kiss you!"

His right wrist had pressed against her hand, where it held his chin.  Her other hand came up and she held his bearded face as she started kissing him back.

"Mmmmmmmm," she moaned, as his lips opened back up and his tongue came out to play.

Then it was a hundred and twenty seconds of "Mmmmm" and "Uhhhh," said into each other's open mouths, as they had to breathe, and one kiss turned into a series of six or seven.  His hands slid down to her shoulders, still heavy on her body, still warm, and still pulling her toward him.

Now she could push him away though, if she wanted to.

She didn't want to.  She was dizzy with the excitement of these kisses.  She couldn't remember the last time a man's lips had told her so forcefully, but so tenderly, that a kiss was precious, and something to celebrate.

He finally pulled back.

"Wow," she breathed, her breath a rush of air that emptied her lungs in that one syllable.

He looked past the left side of her head, and she turned it to find his script right there, in his hand.  It must have been pressed to her head first, and then her shoulder, and she'd never felt it at all!

"Now that was a kiss," he said.

Her next line was supposed to be "Can we do that again?" but they stopped, because she was panting too hard, and was in both no shape and no mood to read from the script.  Both reached up and turned their microphones off again.

"That was very good," he said.  "I told him we'd take a break after that.  You OK?"

"No," she sighed softly.   "I was going to teach you a lesson.  It didn't work out that way at all."

"Sorry," he said.  "I got a little carried away."  He actually blushed.  "You sounded really good, though.  I think it helped."   The part of her brain that determined the truth or bullshit factors at play in discussions like this threw up a big white "TRUTH" flag.  

"That was ... surprising," said Layla, tilting her head and looking at Bob, her right eye almost covered by her hair.

The man opened the door and walked in.  His mouth was hanging open.

"I've never heard anything like that," he said.  "How in the WORLD did you make that sound so real?"

Bob opened his mouth but Layla cut him off.

"We're actors!" she said.

The man brushed his hand over his forehead, almost like he was wiping away beads of sweat.

"Well if you keep acting like that, I can guarantee you work for the next three years!"

"I'll remember you said that," said Layla.

As stated before, Layla was a pragmatic girl.  She was intelligent too.  What she was feeling at that moment was something complicated, but simple at the same time.   She had liked that kiss.  She had liked it a lot.  That it had been with this man who she'd only just met was one of the things that made it complicated.  That she didn't know his last name registered with the part of her brain that recognized the complications inherent in what was going on.  So did the fact that he was much older than she was, and that she had a little boy, and that she didn't even know if he was married or not.  He'd talked about his grown up children, but had said nothing at all about a wife.

But the simple part was really quite simple.

"We're ready to go on," she said to the man.

"Right!" he said, almost scurrying back out into the mixing booth.

Layla turned to Bob.  

"If there are any more kissing noises ... we kiss, OK?"

His eyes widened a bit, but not for long.

"Got it," he said.

There were more.  Whoever this Lubrican person was, he liked to make things build up slowly.  When Megan asked if they could do that again, Mr. Wilson said he'd be happy to help her learn to enjoy kisses to their utmost.

They spent another fifteen minutes speaking lines, broken up by kisses.   She loved them.  It was obvious he did too.  The hard part was keeping from adlibbing.  Once she said "I could do this for hours," which wasn't in the script.  The man didn't come yell at them, though, and they went on.

Then, suddenly, Bob said "You'd better go home, Megan.  We don't want your parents to start worrying about you, and ... I feel like teaching you more than just kissing.  Yes ... you'd better go now."

Layla reacted like it was real life.  She didn't want to stop.  She wanted the kissing part to go on for two more chapters.  She really COULD kiss him for hours.   His hand waving at her and pointing to the script made her jerk.  Her eyes went to the lines he had spoken and she saw her next line at the very bottom of the page.

"OK," she sighed softly.

It turned out that studio time had been allocated on a per chapter basis.  They had already gone over the allotted time for the two chapters they'd read through, so the man, whose name turned out to be Charles, told them they were done for the day.  He also asked if they could both come back the next day.

They looked at each other.  Bob nodded, and then raised his right eyebrow, an obvious "Is that OK?"

"You got a phone?" asked Layla.

"Sure," said Charles.  He took them into a small office where there was a phone on the desk.  

Layla picked it up and dialed.

"Julie?" she said into the phone.  "Can you watch Aidan tomorrow too?  It went pretty well today."  She listened and then said  "OK, great."  She put the phone back and said, "Tomorrow is fine."

They walked out together, but it felt different somehow.  All the doubts came rushing back.  She didn't know him.  She had spent twenty minutes making out with him ... but she didn't really know much about him.  She suddenly felt awkward.  What did he think?  Was he thinking that she'd throw herself at him?  Did he expect things to just escalate?

"I'm starved," he said.  "This acting stuff is hard work."

She blinked.  It sure didn't SOUND like he was hot and bothered.  She couldn't help but glance down at the front of his pants.  The expected lump was there, but his pants were loose, so she couldn't tell much about it.  She was horrified to feel the urge to reach down and feel, to see if he was hard.   Her panties were damp.  There was no doubt of any kind about that.  She'd been turned ON, back there in that studio.

"Could I buy you dinner?" he asked, looking straight ahead.  "I feel like I should compensate you for pushing you into all that."

"You didn't push me into anything!" she said, wanting to retain as much independence as she could, under the circumstances.  Those circumstances played back through her mind, though, and she felt a little ungrateful.  "Well, OK, you pushed me a little bit," she said.  "But it wasn't so bad."

"It wasn't anywhere close to bad," he said.  

She saw the ends of his moustache rise and knew he was smiling.  She'd never realized how much a beard could hide facial expressions.

"You're very naughty," she said.  "You know that, don't you?"

"I know," he said.  "Thanks for not getting mad at me.  I really appreciate that."

"Yes, you can buy me dinner," she heard her mouth say.  Her mind raced.  "But you have to buy it for my little boy too.  He's been at the sitter's all day and I don't want to leave him there any longer than I have to."

"I'd be delighted to meet him," said Bob.  

Layla's built in lie detector waved another white flag.

"Dinner" turned out to be a trip to Chucky Cheese's, by Layla's choice.  That was primarily because Aidan could play there, as well as eat.  It also made it easy to talk, or to refrain from talking, if that was how things turned out.  Having Aidan with her did the same thing.  She could spend time taking care of him, if things got weird.  

They didn't.  At least not at first.  Bob was friendly toward Aidan, but no more so than toward Layla, really.  He was relaxed and seemed just the same as he'd been at lunch.  He told a few stories and asked a few questions.

While Aidan was playing in a net full of colored balls, burrowing down under them to pop up somewhere else and yell, "Here I am!"  Bob pulled out his now somewhat bedraggled script.

"Have you read ahead?" he asked.

"Not yet," she said.  "Getting through today was enough for me."

"It gets ... um ... well ... there are more noises to make."

"What kind of noises?" she asked.

"Kind of ... explicit," he said, frowning.

"You mean they have sex," said Layla.

"Yeah," he sighed.  "It is an adult novel, after all."

"Do you want to have sex with me, Bob?" she asked.

Now where had THAT come from?! she wondered.

"What?"  He looked pale and his eyes were wide.

"I didn't mean to ask you that," she said, blushing.  "I don't know why I said that."

"Oh," he said, looking less like he was about to keel over.  "OK."

It hung there, though.  It couldn't be taken back.  She looked away, but her eyes darted back as she blushed.  The startled look on his face left it as her eyes continued to flitter this way and that.

"Perhaps I could answer that question in a general ... non-specific kind of way," said Bob.

"What do you mean?" she asked, only faintly curious.   She was afraid she wouldn't like his answer ... whatever it was.   His flirting had been ... odd ... but at the same time, kind of nice in a non-threatening way.  His kisses had undone all that, making it very clear that he enjoyed kissing her.  Still, he hadn't pushed it.   It suddenly occurred to her that she'd felt like pushing things herself.

"Well, you can look at that question from several different viewpoints," he said.

"Oh?"   She didn't think there was any viewpoint but the one she had so stupidly asked about.  He either wanted to have sex with her or he didn't.  She was pretty sure she wouldn't like either answer.

"Sure," he said.  "On one level, all I'd have to do is tell you how I feel about that, as it pertains to you and me."

"Didn't I just think that?" she thought.

"But that viewpoint shouldn't be answered yet."  He looked at her.  She waited.  "Maybe later ... some day ... but not today.”

"What other viewpoint is there?" she asked, curious now.   He'd basically said he didn't want to answer her question.   That was a third possible answer, one she hadn't thought of herself.  Of the three answers she now knew of, she thought she actually liked that one the best.

"We could generalize things," he said.   "As a woman in this particular society, you represent certain ... things."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well, you're unconventional, for one thing," he said.  "Not many girls these days will sport a mohawk and be comfortable with it.  You have tattoos that are visible while you're wearing clothing.  That also suggests that you want to march to your own drummer, rather than playing the silly games that some women play with tiny little tattoos that nobody ever sees."

"OK," she said.

"You're a single mother, but you don't whine about it.  A lot of women in your situation think the world owes them something.   You just decided that you were going to be a mother and make the best of things."

"I agree," said Layla, who felt the same way.  It had been as much her fault as Aidan's father.  It takes two to tango, after all.

"Those are all physical signs that give some indication of what your personality might be like," he went on.  "But there's more to you than just your personality.  You have looks too."

"You just said that," she said.  "You were talking about my hair and tattoos, were you not?"

"Well," he said, leaning back.  He looked very comfortable, and suddenly Layla got the impression he would be willing to talk about all this for hours, if she'd let him.  "That's not quite what I meant about physical characteristics.  What I was talking about are your legs ... hips ... breasts ... hands ... feet.   All the parts that make you a girl and, in particular, the girl you look like."

"I look like myself," she said.  "All women - and I'm a woman, not a girl, Gramps - all women have all of those things."

"Absolutely," he said.  "Isn't it interesting that almost any woman you can find has a man who is interested in her body, no matter what her body looks like?"

"What?"

"Ugly women, Layla.  There are lots of ugly women out there ... except that 'ugly' is a relative term, because most of those women who want a man ... have a man."

"Would you just get on with it?" she asked, somewhat impatiently.  "I know you're not calling me ugly."

"No, I'm not.  I was just pointing out that different body types are attractive to different men."

"That's bullshit," she said.  "There isn't a man alive who looks for an ugly woman and doesn't rest until he finds her.  That's silly and you know it."

"Are there men who look for a beautiful woman?" he asked.

"Of course.  All men are looking for a beautiful woman."

Bob looked pained.  "I'm not doing this well."

"I'm just trying to figure out what the heck you're trying to do," said Layla.

"I'm trying to answer your question in a way that will salvage our budding friendship," he said.

"We have a budding friendship?" she asked.  She hadn't thought about it in quite those terms.

"I hope so," he said.

"Aha!" she said. "You DO want to have sex with me."

He looked pained again.

"I'm trying not to say that," he said.

"Why?" she asked.  She wished she’d just said "Oh forget it!" instead.

"Because I don't think you really want to hear me say that, in my imagination, I want to take you like a slavering wolf takes a succulent young lamb, and that I want to breed you and make your belly swell up for the next ten years running," he said calmly.

"Bob!" she yipped.  Her eyes darted around.  They were in a family restaurant, for Pete's sake!  "I can't BELIEVE you said that!"

"I didn't say that," he said, smiling.  "I said that's what you probably don't want to hear."

"Of course not!" she gasped.

"And if I said something like that, you wouldn't want to be friends with me anymore, now would you?"

What arrested her thought process, which was about to suggest that she tell him off and leave, was his choice of the image of a "slavering wolf."  That had been her image of him!  Back in the studio, when he'd looked at her like that and said what he'd said, she'd thought of a wolf.   She knew he couldn't read her mind.  That meant that he'd chosen that word on purpose.  Her eyes widened.

"You're acting again!" she said, accusingly.

"I'm philosophizing," he corrected.  "Just let me finish, OK?  This is getting weird."

"You're telling me!" she said.

"Mommy!  Here I AM!" complained Aidan, who was tugging at her shirt.  He had abandoned the pit of colored balls.

She turned to her son.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said soothingly.  "I was talking to Bob and I didn't pay enough attention to you."

"OK!"  Aidan smiled, turned, and ran back to the ball pit.   She had paid attention to him.  Now everything was fine.

"Sorry," said Bob.  He sounded contrite.  "Maybe we should have this conversation later."

"I shouldn't have asked the question in the first place," she said.  "Now I'm curious."

"I can cut to the chase," he offered.

"How?" she asked.

"By saying that you're a whole package.  Your looks, your body, all of it are probably attractive to — I'm estimating here — maybe sixty percent of all men.  So that means that about sixty percent of all men would evaluate you positively as a potential sexual mate."

"Sixty percent?" she said weakly.  "Of ALL men?"

"Maybe more," said Bob.  "But I'm just guessing."

"That's a lot of men," she said, looking bewildered.  Nobody had ever said anything remotely like that to her before.

"Those are just the men who would want to find out more about you," he said.  "A lot of them would lose interest when they did."

She bristled.  "Why?!"

"Don't get upset," he said, grinning.  "How many men do you look at, and then look at again, and later find out they aren't as interesting as you thought they were?"

She was about to say, "Tons," but kept her mouth shut.

"Let's just say I'm in the sixty percent," he said.

He hadn't offered to follow her home, to make sure she and her son got there all right.   If he had, it would have sent alarm bells ringing in her head.  What he DID do was give her his phone number.

"Go home," he said.  "Read through the script.  If you don't think you can do what's coming up, just call me and tell me.  You don't even have to come in in the morning if you don't want to.  I'll go in and tell them you aren't interested anymore.   Maybe they have someone else lined up ... waiting in the wings, so to speak."

"But you're going in regardless?" she had asked.

"I need the money," he said.

Now, at home, feeling less pressure, and with Aidan in bed and hopefully asleep for the night, she thought about that.   He'd paid for their dinner ... but he needed the money.

She thought about the fifty dollars in her purse that Charles had handed her.  It was already spent, even though it was still in her purse.

As she thought back on what happened that day, the whole thing was a little unsettling for Layla.  There were so many ways to look at the things he'd said and done.   And yet, the bottom line was that he was interested in her.

The problem was she didn't quite know what that meant either.  He really WAS old enough to be a grandfather.  She realized it wasn't his age that bothered her.  Then she wondered what he'd say if he knew that.  He'd probably philosophize, she thought darkly.  After that she wondered if her not caring about the age difference had anything to do with her hair and tattoos.  She had always just decided what she liked ... and done that.  She didn't worry all that much about people who thought she was odd.  If they thought she was odd, they weren't her type anyway.  That led to her thinking about the sixty percent he'd estimated.  That had to be goofy.  On the other hand, she didn't care what percentage it was.   If she liked a man, she investigated.  If not, she didn't.

She picked up the script, settled into a soft chair, and began to read.

It was almost ten when the phone rang.  Bob glanced at the readout—he didn't recognize the number, but picked it up anyway.

"Bob?"

It was Layla.

"Hi," he said, keeping his voice neutral.

"This is terrible, Bob!" she said.

"It gets kind of rough, I agree," he said.  He had changed "interesting" to "rough" in a split second.  He didn't think she'd appreciate what happened in the story as being interesting to him.  It was, but he didn't think she'd like that.

"I can't make all those noises, Bob," she said.  "I'd feel positively ridiculous!"

"I understand," he said.  "I'll tell Charles he just has to find someone else.  It's only been one day and they can probably use a lot of what we did anyway."

"I didn't say I'm not coming in, Bob," said the voice on the phone.

"You didn't?"

"No.  You didn't let me finish.  I said, I can't make those noises ... unless you help me."

"Oh," he said.  He wasn't sure what that meant.

"You have to help me, Bob," she said.

"You don't have to do this, Layla," he offered.

He could hear her sigh over the phone.  "I need the money too, Bob."

They actually talked for another hour, as he tried to find out what she wanted him to do and she, more often than not, said, "I don't know."

He reminded her that it was all just acting, and she reminded him that she wasn't an actress.

At least three or four times, he expected her to change her mind.  But she never did.

END OF PREVIEW

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