The Making of a Gigolo (12) - Janet Griswold
by Lubrican
Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Foreword
This is story number twelve in a series of stories about how Bobby Dalton was transformed, from a normal teenage boy, into a man sought after by many women. His story starts with "The Making of a Gigolo - Tilly Johnson", and there is much information in that first story, and the ones that followed it, that will be useful to you in understanding what happens in this story.
For your fullest enjoyment, and because parts of each story are continued in succeeding ones, please read the stories in order.
Bob
Chapter One
1974 - December
Janet Griswold was sitting in front of her TV feeling sorry for herself. It was the twenty-first of December, and she was "celebrating" her thirty-second birthday. So far, only her best friend, Rhonda, had called to wish her happy birthday. Even then, it had only been a call, without an offer to take her out to dinner or anything!
Of course, Janet was used to birthdays like that. As a child, the fact that her birthday was so close to Christmas had led to the inevitable combination of both holidays, meaning she got nothing until Christmas morning. True, she always got a cake on her birthday, but she had always felt a little like she had been cheated.
A lot of Janet's life seemed to have been short-changed a bit. Her first husband, Willard, had been a mean drunk, and had smacked her around when he was drinking. She'd taken it for a year, thinking she could change him. Then he'd broken two of her fingers when he bent them back, while screaming at her. That had been the last straw, and she'd filed for divorce. That he had left without comment didn't make her feel any better.
Then, when she had decided he was just a fluke, she had taken the chance again, marrying Jack, a man she met at a town celebration. He had turned out to be a jealous man. At a party, when she was with a group of other wives, he had overheard a man saying he'd like to fuck her. That the man was drunk, and also said he'd like to fuck the other women in the group didn't matter. Jack told her about it later that night, when they got home.
All she had done was smile, and he had slapped her around, telling her not to get any ideas. Then he had dominated her in an hour long sexual encounter, in which he had demanded she cum, because it was important to him that he be the man who made her cum. When she finally did, he slapped her again, twice, and told her to remember that she was his bitch, and that she'd better never let any other dog come sniffing around.
She had taken it from Willard a dozen times before getting up the courage to leave him. This time, when she stared at the hand print on her cheek, the next morning, she moved her stuff out as soon as he went to work.
Jack fought the divorce bitterly. She was of the opinion that he just didn't want any other man to have her. The only reason she felt safe from him now was because his company had moved him to Albany, New York. He was supposed to pay her alimony, but she hadn't seen a check in years. She didn't want to have to communicate with him again, so she just got by on her own.
Since then she had just about decided that she didn't want any other man to have her either. It wasn't that she didn't miss the better, kinder parts of a relationship. She missed the intimacy and the camaraderie a lot. She missed the sex too. Both men had pleased her, when they weren't being bastards.
But she just didn't trust men anymore.
She talked a good game, at least to Rhonda, making suggestive remarks, commenting on men; as if she were a tiger on the prowl, and those men were prey. But it was all a front. She was scared to death to think about dating again ... about exposing herself to a man's control ... and wrath.
She had purchased what she called her "perfect man", a seven inch dildo that only Rhonda knew she owned. She had used it for over five years, but lately, it had lost some of its appeal.
Almost three years ago she had managed to help her friend Rhonda, who was stuck in an untenable marriage with a homosexual man. Her "perfect man" had gotten a lot of use back then, as she saw Rhonda blossom and flower in the relationships she had with Bobby Dalton. Janet had paid the man to have sex with Rhonda. The change in Rhonda had been startling ... almost unbelievable. She had even had the man's baby!
Janet was a frequent visitor to Rhonda's house and had helped, to a surprisingly large extent, raise little Elizabeth, who was almost two years old now. She'd known nothing about babies until Rhonda had one. Now she thought of Elizabeth as her niece, and now that she was walking and talking, Janet couldn't wait to see what happened next.
During that time, she had seen Bobby lots of times, when he came over to spend time with his daughter and her mother. Janet always pulled back a bit whenever Bobby was there. It wasn't that he scared her. He was always friendly and polite. And Rhonda obviously had a special place in her heart for him. It was just ... well ... it was just that he was a ... man.
He was a handsome man. He was obviously good in bed, if Rhonda was anything to go by. He seemed like a nice guy. But, in the end, he was a man ... and she could not bring herself to trust one of them again.
She'd been plenty envious of Rhonda in the beginning. There were times, back then, that Janet thought about how much better looking she was than Rhonda, with her hourglass figure, and firm, high-riding breasts. She had driven her husbands crazy with lust, and she'd seen that same lust in lots of other male eyes. She hadn't seen it in Bobby's eyes, though. Not for her. She saw it in his eyes when he looked at Rhonda ... plain, dowdy, slightly overweight Rhonda.
And she'd felt shame. Rhonda deserved happiness, and she had found some measure of it with Bobby. It was then that Janet put Bobby Dalton off limits, and reminded herself that he was ... a man.
She lifted the small tumbler of bourbon she had allowed herself for her birthday. She was careful with whisky, knowing what it had done to her first husband, and others she knew. She tossed off the half inch left in the tumbler and winced as the whiskey burned her throat. She stood, and wavered, realizing that she had drunk the three fingers she'd allowed herself much too quickly. It didn't matter. She was just going to go to bed. She'd wake up tomorrow, and it wouldn't be her birthday anymore. That would be a better day.
She had just washed out the glass, and settled it carefully into the dish drainer, when the doorbell sounded.
She looked at her wrist, which was bare. She'd taken her watch off earlier. She looked up at the clock above the sink. No luck there. The battery had been dead for ages, and the clock had read 3:14 ever since. Next she looked at the window. It was dark. Who could be at her door?
She felt the nervousness that a single woman always feels, when someone is at the door and it's dark outside. She tiptoed to the door, as if that might keep her safe, somehow.
"Who is it?" she yelled through the wood.
"Bobby," came a man's voice, through the door. "Bobby Dalton."
Janet blinked. Why would Bobby Dalton be here?
"Rhonda's not here," she yelled, going for the obvious reason he might be there.
"I know," he said. "Can I come in?"
She wasn't afraid of Bobby, so she opened the door.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, peering through the storm door at him.
"Happy birthday," he said, grinning. He held up a colorfully wrapped present.
"For me?" she asked, in amazement. She opened the screen door and he stepped in.
"You're the only one here who's having a birthday, aren't you?" he asked. He looked around in an exaggerated manner, looking for any other people.
"Of course," she said, reaching for the package.
She couldn't remember the last time someone had given her a real birthday present ... on her birthday, and her fingers tore at the paper, to reveal a tin of chocolate covered cashew nuts.
"Rhonda said they were your favorite," said Bobby.
"They are!" said Janet. "Thank you!"
"Um ... that's not all," said Bobby, carefully.
"What else?" asked Janet, excitedly.
"Rhonda got you something too," he said.
"What, what?!" she demanded.
"Well ... uh ... me."
"What?" Janet looked confused.
"Remember how you hired me for her?" he asked. "She did the same thing ... except it's for you."
Janet's fingers went numb. He was here! In the house! He wanted sex!
"No!" she whispered.
"Really," he said, looking earnest. "I wouldn't tease you about that, Janet."
"No!" she said, more loudly. "You can't! No!"
She thrust the cashews at him, more as something to keep him away from her than anything else. When he took them from her nerveless fingers, the barrier between them was gone, and she felt even more vulnerable.
"No ... please," she moaned, backing up.
While he stood there, she turned and dashed for her bedroom door. She ran inside and slammed it closed, reaching to engage the lock that wasn't there. She looked at the knob, helplessly, and gripped it with her hand, as tightly as she could.
"Janet?" came his voice, through her bedroom door.
"No!" she yelled. "Go away!"
"Janet," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you." He had known Janet would react to this ... he just hadn't known how she would react. "It's just for your birthday," he added, hopefully.
"Just leave, Bobby," she moaned. "She shouldn't have done this."
"Can't we just talk about it?" asked Bobby. "She paid me already." He winced as soon as he'd said it. Money wasn't the point, here. He also didn't like the sound of that.
"Give her the money back," she said through the door.
Her hand still gripped the knob tightly. She hadn't felt him try to turn it, but she wasn't taking chances now.
"I'm not leaving here with you acting like this," said Bobby. "Come out and we'll just talk."
"Noooooo, Bobby," she moaned. "Pleeeease leave."
"Not until you calm down, and talk to me," he insisted. "Why are you so afraid of me?"
"I'm not ..." she started to say, and realized that was patently false. She was afraid of him. She took a breath and thought about that. Why was she afraid of Bobby Dalton? He'd never done anything even remotely aggressive. There had been that one time, when he'd offered to let her watch while he ravished Rhonda, but she'd found out later that had just been a prank. She remembered being astonished that Rhonda had gone along with it. It had been so different than what she would have expected Rhonda to do. She'd expected that Rhonda might hide in her room.
Like she was doing right now!
"Wait in the living room," she called through the door.
"Okay," he said. "You're coming out?"
"I don't know," she yelled. "Just go wait there, please?"
"Okay, Janet."
She waited to feel his hand on the knob, but it never came. She waited, wondering if he was on the other side of the door, being quiet, so he could grab her when she opened the door.
She couldn't stay in here all night.
She suddenly felt foolish. She was overreacting. She knew that, but her stomach still roiled. The fear was almost palpable. She'd had the occasional thought about Bobby, but had no idea it would be like this! She felt crippled.
"Bobby?" she said softly. "Are you out there?"
When nothing came through the door, she turned the knob slowly. Panic gripped her heart as she opened it ... just a crack ... and peeked out.
Nothing.
She felt even more foolish, and opened it wider, her muscles still ready to flee.
He wasn't in the hallway either.
Of course he wasn't! It was Bobby! Why was she so frightened? This was insane. He was in the living room, where she'd asked him to go.
She tried to move confidently toward the living room. She'd say a few words to him ... explain that she'd had a bad day or something. He'd leave, and she'd be safe again.
She had to walk by the kitchen doorway on the way, and movement caught her eye as she did. Her head turned to see him standing there.
"Eeeep!" she yelped, banging off the hallway wall as she lurched away from him.
He held out a glass with orange liquid in it.
"I thought you might like something to drink," he said. "Orange juice was all I found in the fridge." He peered at her. "Are you okay?"
"Yes!" she said, feeling more foolish than ever. "I just had a bad day, that's all."
"You've been drinking," he commented.
"No!" she said, denying it.
"Janet, I can smell it on your breath."
How had he gotten so close to her? He was right there!
She saw the glass move toward her, and took it with a shaky hand.
"You need to sit down," he said.
"Okay," she muttered. "Yes."
She sat. He sat across the room from her, in a chair. She gulped at the orange juice.
"I'm not like this," she said.
"Obviously, you are like this," said Bobby. He sipped juice too, and looked as normal as the day is long. "I'm just curious about why. I'd like to think that you’d know I'd never hurt you."
"I didn't think that!" she lied.
"Yes you did," he said. "You were terrified. What did I do to terrify you?"
"Just go home, Bobby," she sighed. "It's not you."
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.
"No."
"Would you talk about it anyway?" he asked.
She looked up, confused. If you didn't want to talk about something, that was all there was to say about it ... wasn't it?
"Why do you even care?" asked Janet. "If it's the money, I'll give you whatever she gave you."
He sighed. "It's not the money, Janet. Aren't we friends? Don't friends talk? I could care less about the money, even though I asked for more for you." He looked pained, as though he hadn't meant to say that.
"What?" asked Janet. "You asked for more? For me? Why? What's wrong with me?"
"Never mind that," he said. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."
"What did you mean?" she insisted.
"Look," he said. "Rhonda paid me for three hours, okay? Let's just say I wanted to have plenty of time to spend with you. We can do anything you want. If you want to bake cookies, I'll bake them with you. If you want to clean the house, I'll help. If you've got anything broken, I'll fix it. It doesn't have to be sex. It was just Rhonda trying to do something nice for you, okay?"
"Why would Rhonda do that?" moaned Janet.
"Why did you do it for her?" he asked in return.
"That's different!" she said. "She was miserable."
"And you're just brimming over with happiness," he said flatly. "That's why you smiled so much when I showed up, and were so giddy and all." She couldn't miss the sarcasm in his voice.
"It's not you," she said, almost petulantly. "I've just had ... problems ... with men."
"What kind of problems?" he asked.
"It's personal," she said.
"I was paid to make love to you, Janet. That's kind of personal too, don't you think?"
She blinked. Her husbands had been good in bed, but neither of them would have used a term like "make love". They had wanted to "get it on", or said things like, "Get naked, baby, cause my trouser snake wants to explore a hole."
"Why would you even want to do that?" she asked, trying to sort out her thoughts.
"Well, part of it was as a favor to Rhonda," he said, being truthful. "And I guess part of it is because you're a fine looking woman."
Her mind roiled even more. She'd looked for signs that he thought she was attractive. She'd never seen even one! He'd always treated her as Rhonda's friend. He'd been friendly ... but that was all.
"You never said anything," she said, somewhat defensively.
"I never thought you were interested," he said. "You were always a little standoffish. At least that's what I thought."
"You were Rhonda's," she said.
"I'm not Rhonda's, and Rhonda is not mine," he said patiently. "We've shared some very special moments, but we don't own each other."
"You know what I mean," she insisted. "She had your baby, for pity's sake!"
"We didn't exactly plan for that to happen," he said. "Not at first, anyway."
"I'm just not ... comfortable ... around men," she said.
"Are you a lesbian?" he asked.
She looked shocked.
"Of courase not!" she almost yelled. "Did Rhonda say that?"
"No," said Bobby. "It's just that you were so obviously not interested in sex ... and you said it wasn't me ... so I thought maybe you just weren't interested in men. It's fine with me if that's true."
"Well it's not true!" she said.
"Okay, then," he said. "I just like you and I don't like seeing you all upset like this."
"You just called me a lesbian!" she said. "Why wouldn't I be upset?"
"You were upset before that, Janet," he sighed. "You want to go get a burger or something?"
"A burger? It's dark outside!"
"What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" he asked.
"Where would we get a burger this time of night?" she asked.
"I don't know, Wichita, maybe," he said patiently.
"Wichita?! You'd drive all the way to Wichita just to get a burger?" She was obviously still agitated.
"I'd drive all the way to Wichita as an excuse to spend some time with you and calm you down," he explained.
She stopped, almost speechless. "You would?"
"Sure," he said. "Why not? I've got three hours to spend with you, and that's just on the clock. If it takes four, I'll donate the time to a worthy cause."
"Oh, now I'm a cause, am I?" she said tightly.
"Janet, do you like me?" he asked. "’Cause if you don't like me, and just don't want to be around me, that's fine. I can live with that."
"No, you're okay," she said, instinctively trying not to be rude to him.
"Then let's go get a burger and a shake, and try to figure out why you're so jumpy."
"I know why I'm jumpy," she said, almost pouting.
"Well, then, you can explain it to me," he said. "Are you coming or not? It's your birthday we're celebrating here, so I think you should at least come along."
She dithered for a few seconds, and then looked at him. He looked just like he always looked. It was disturbing, because he was handsome. Her femininity noticed that and just naturally wanted to open that door, but her conscious mind fought with the urge to explore.
"You won't try anything?" she asked.
He sighed. "No, Janet. I get the message, okay?"
"Just for a burger?" she asked, still nervous.
"And maybe a shake and some fries," he said seriously. "And to talk."
"Okay," she said suddenly, and headed for the door.
"You might want to take a coat," he said.
"Oh. Yes. Of course," she said, feeling silly.
Wichita was exactly sixty-two miles from Granger, according the the road sign, but the strip on West Kellogg Street was where they entered town, and that's where all the fast food places were. Janet was astonished at how quickly they got there.
She'd spent the first ten minutes trying to figure out why she'd reacted so violently to his arrival. She interacted with men all the time and nothing like that had ever happened. She wasn't afraid of men. She just didn't want to get involved with one in an intimate relationship. But her panic had been so strong it had almost incapacitated her! She did't understand.
She didn't have time to reflect on that any longer, because, little by little, he got her to respond to his questions and, once he got her talking, she had talked pretty much non-stop. Women like to talk to women. That's known. Call it bonding, or friendship, or even a natural propensity for females to be motor-mouths. What most people don't know, though, is that women like to talk to men too.
At least when they listen.
And that's the problem. Most men don't take the time to listen to a woman. Men are action-oriented, genetically. Men want to do something, as opposed to talk about something. And, therefore, most men have a tendency to want to move a relationship past the talking point to the doing things point.
For women, talking is sometimes foreplay. They may not be aware of it, but having a man talk to them, and listen to them, can actually be a form of sexual intimacy. Men don't understand that either. If they did, they would realize that just talking, and sharing thoughts with a woman, will get you a lot closer to getting laid than flexing your muscles.
To be fair, neither of the people in Bobby's car that evening were thinking about that. Bobby just knew she was agitated, and let her talk it out. Janet was starved for some normal interplay with a man who respected her, and, once she got started, she was practically bulimic about the pain in her life.
She told him about both her husbands, and his infrequent. "Uh huh," or. "That's too bad," kind of comments, as he drove through the dark, were the perfect pushes to keep her going. She'd actually analyzed what went wrong in both marriages in a very astute way. Knowing what's wrong, though, doesn't necessarily mean you know how to fix it. The bottom line was that Janet didn't trust men ... any men.
Food, especially fatty food that isn't good for you, physically, does wonders to the pleasure centers in the brain. If we were still hunters and gatherers, like men and women were fifty-thousand years ago, a cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate shake would be the perfect meal. It would provide badly needed calories that taste fabulous, and flood the brain with chemicals that relax us and make us feel wonderful.
It was for that reason that on the way back to Granger, Janet Griswold was much more relaxed, and much less anxious, when Bobby got to the root of her concerns.
As odd as it is to think about, the pinnacle of the night was when Bobby got Janet to admit, out loud, that she was scared of men. She'd known that subconsciously for quite a while. But she'd never admitted it, because it made her feel weak and impotent. She wanted to think of herself as a strong woman, who had gotten rid of two abusive husbands, and made her own way in life. She had a job, and she made her house payments. She had convinced herself that she didn't need a man. Miles went by as she tried to convince Bobby of that.
"So," he summed up. "You picked two of the wrong men, and tried to love them, but they treated you badly."
"Yes," she said. Hadn't she already explained all that to him? Hadn't it taken her almost an hour to do so?
"And that makes you afraid of all men."
"I'm not afraid of men," she objected. "I just don't see the use in messing up your life with them."
"You were afraid of me," he pointed out.
"I was not!" she argued.
"Janet," he said softly. "You were terrified."
Being with a man for an hour and a half – especially when that man listens to you, doesn't put the make on you, and treats you with respect – makes it pretty hard to be scared to death of him. It also puts your previous erratic behavior with that man on a pedestal that's impossible to ignore.
"Okay, I was a little scared," she admitted. "I'm not scared of you now, though."
"I think you're scared of all men," he said. "When I first showed up, you saw just a man, and reacted to that. You've had time to calm down and think about it. That's all that's changed."
"I disagree," she said. "You just surprised me, that's all."
"Did you know I think you have really fabulous breasts?" asked Bobby casually. "And your lips ... I'd love to kiss them."
"What?!" Janet scooted closer to the passenger door.
"See?" he asked, not looking at her in the dark car. "All I did was tell you what I was thinking, and you're about to climb out of the car. If you're not afraid of me, why are you so upset?"
"That's not fair!" said Janet, agitated again. "You were talking about sex!"
"Isn't sex part of life?" asked Bobby. "Don't you expect men to bring sex up, sooner or later, in a conversation or relationship?" He did look over at her, briefly, then. "Didn't you say that the sex with your ex-husbands was great?"
"Yes, but ..." Janet subsided. "You can't have great sex one minute, and then be terrified that there will be a fist in your face the next minute!"
"Not all men are like that, Janet," he said calmly.
"Every one I met was!" she insisted.
"No, every one you married was," corrected Bobby.
"What's the difference?" she moaned.
"The difference is that that made you scared of all men ... even the ones who won't hurt you."
"Okay!" she almost yelled. "I'm afraid of men! I can't do anything about that!"
"Sure you can," said Bobby. "All you have to do is learn how to tell the abusive ones from the ones that aren't."
"And how, exactly, do I do that?" she asked, her voice heated.
"I don't know," said Bobby. "But what I do know is that you have lots of experience at being around abusive men. You know their mannerisms and habits. You know the way they act when something goes wrong. You've seen them working into being in an abusive state. You're the expert here, not me."
"I don't feel like an expert," she said.
"Well, maybe that's something we can work on," said Bobby.
"Why do you even care?" she asked.
"I try to help my friends," he answered.
"Why am I your friend?" she asked.
"You introduced me to Rhonda," he said, smiling in the dark. "Rhonda is very special to me. And you're her best friend. Isn't that enough?"
"It just seems weird that you'd do that with Rhonda, and then ..." She didn't finish.
"Want to do it with you too?" he guessed.
"Yes," she said.
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" he asked.
"Of course."
"I'm a man," he said, "like dozens of other men who have noticed you before, and been interested in getting to know you better. Why do you think it's odd that I'd be interested in you sexually?"
"You're making me nervous again," she moaned.
"We'll have to work on that too," he said.
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