The Making of a Gigolo (15) - Agatha Roberts

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36

Foreword

This is the fifteenth, and last full book 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.

While this book is titled with the name of a principle female character, there are others who have major roles as well. This is the final book in the series, so the subject matter will be diverse. An epilogue will wrap up loose ends, but, because of the length of this book, will be published separately.

Bob

Chapter One

1976 - July

The fireworks were over and people were streaming to their cars or walking home. The lights on the bandstand had gone out, though there were still strings of other lights still on, here and there. Most of the cleanup would take place the next day. There was no rain threatening, so no one felt like staying late to fold chairs or take down tables.

Bobby Dalton was in no hurry to get to his car. The twins had come with their mother and left the same way. He'd been doing a last minute emergency repair on a faucet after the washer in it had disintegrated and it wouldn't stop running, and he'd come to the celebration straight from that, in his car. He was walking slowly through the semi-dark when he saw the woman he'd been thinking about earlier in the evening.

Agatha Roberts was also in no hurry to start the walk home. She had picked up her chair and moved it out from under the trees so she could watch the fireworks. She'd always loved fireworks. They were like castles in the sky when she was a little girl, and had fired her imagination back then. They still did. They were so bright and cheerful and beautiful. And so temporary. She always felt a little let down when they ended. While she didn't think about it consciously, the fireworks were a metaphor of the dreams she'd had as a teenager. There had been a few bright moments in her life, like bursting sprays of electric color, but they had faded, leaving only drifting smoke on the wind. She sat now, alone, still staring at the sky, her mind elsewhere.

She sat alone because none of her friends liked fireworks, at least not like she did. To some of the people she circulated with, the fireworks were only noisy, dangerous things that had to be endured. Some of them wanted the city council to pass an ordinance banning fireworks inside the city limits. Agatha was secretly horrified by that idea. Shooting off fireworks with her brothers had been a highlight of each of her years, growing up. But her friends sat at the tables and clucked about how, while it was pretty, as the bursts of color filled the skies, it was also a waste of good money. Even though it wasn't their money being wasted. Had someone pointed that out, another discussion would have started about the Chumleys and how they had more money than they needed to begin with.

And so, she always picked up her chair and moved to where she could enjoy the sights without having to listen to what would otherwise ruin the show. On this particular night, she had settled in beside a blanket, upon which a man and his wife sat, with their three children. The children had danced and shouted, awed by the huge balls of light in the sky, exclaiming that this one was the best, then saying the same thing again when the next burst took place. Husband and wife simply sat, staring upwards, holding hands.

She had enjoyed the antics of the children and envied the quiet closeness of their parents. Children had been one of her bright and colorful dreams as a teenager. The first two or three years of her marriage to Harry had turned those dreams not just to smoke, but to ashes, as well. There had been no children. She didn't know why, but it didn't matter. Then Harry died and she was alone. Her friends expected her to act suitably and decorously, as befitted a proper widow. Her friends had made clear how sorry they were that there could be no man in her future ... that she'd had the only man she was destined to have. She didn't understand why that was, but they made it clear. To be honest, after Harry, she wasn't all that interested in finding another man anyway. Marriage, and living with a man, had been somewhat of a disappointment to Agatha.

"Good evening." The deep voice startled her out of her reverie and she looked over to see who had spoken in the dark. She tensed instantly.

"Nice night," said Bobby, when she didn't respond to his greeting.

"Yes," she said tightly. She looked around. What if someone saw him talking to her?!

"Would you mind if I asked you a question?" His voice was soft, in the dark.

She could see people over by the lighted areas, but they were all moving somewhere. Her friends would have wasted no time leaving the park to go home. It wasn't seemly to stay up late. Early to bed and early to rise was their credo. They wanted to be healthy, wealthy and thought of themselves already as wise.

"It's a free country," she replied. She felt almost proud. She'd heard a young person use that comment at the grocery store and had been secretly waiting to try using it herself. It sounded so modern.

Someone else had left a chair a few feet away, and he got it and sat it in front of her. He sat down and leaned back. She could barely see his face in the dark.

"You don't like me," he said, his voice almost casual.

She frowned. Why would he say that? She'd taken such pains to make herself look alluring to such as him. She'd controlled her disgust for him while he was at her house! He went on, in the dark.

"And yet, you had me come over ... several times in fact ... to do things I could have done all at once. Why do I get the feeling that you wanted me at your house ... but not because I repair things?"

She was astonished at how he'd seen through her ruse. She was also very nervous. Her plan depended on him being ignorant of any danger until the trap was sprung.

"That's nonsense," she said, trying to control her voice.

"I saw you watching me, while I was dancing with Jill," he said. "It looked like maybe you wanted to dance too ... but then you turned and hurried away."

"More nonsense," she muttered. She started to say "I'd never dance with you," but managed to bite that off. Insulting him now wouldn't help her cause. "I don't dance," she said instead.

"I see," he said.

He was quiet for a while, and she didn't know what to do. Why didn't he just get up and leave?

"That's too bad," he said, finally. "I've seen you walk. You're very graceful. You walk like someone who would enjoy dancing."

Agatha was thunderstruck. He'd paid her a compliment! Her mind fluttered. She had loved dancing, when she was in school. She'd had to love it secretly, because her parents didn't approve of dancing. They hadn't approved of lots of things she was interested in back then. All of her dancing had been done privately. She'd watched the other kids, remembered their actions, and practiced them alone in her room, with the music in her mind.

"I guess your friends might think that was odd," he said, interrupting her train of thought. "If you danced with me, I mean." He was quiet again for a few seconds. "They don't like me either," he added.

He sounded like he was pulling away ... almost like he was saying goodbye, somehow, and she felt panic rising in her. She needed him to be interested in her. Her plan on exposing him required it.

"My friends don't make my decisions for me," she almost blurted. She knew that was an outright lie, but how could he know that?

"You must be a very strong woman," he said.

Agatha's mind buzzed. Now why had he said that? She wasn't strong. She was terrified right this instant, in fact.

"Could I ask you another question?" he asked.

She'd been able to dodge his first one. He'd paid her several compliments since then. Maybe her plan was working better than she thought. She felt helpless. If it was working, though, she had no idea why it was working.

"All right," she said.

"You and your friends don't like my friends," he said. "Could you explain why that is?"

Agatha felt honest surprise. Surely he knew. It was obvious. Maybe he was just stupid.

"What on Earth makes you think we don't like you?" she asked, avoiding the question again.

"I'm not stupid, Agatha," he said softly.

It was the first time he'd used her first name. It was also like he could read her mind, because she had been thinking he must be stupid.

"We simply appreciate high moral standards," she said, flustered enough to say it without thinking first.

"And you think our standards are low," he said.

"Women who have children out of wedlock have low moral fiber," she said, automatically.

"My mother and father were married when I was born," said Bobby. "So why do you dislike me?"

He kept getting back to that! She wished that she'd just gotten up and walked away. But her plan prevented that. And the way he was talking made it clear that her plan was in trouble anyway.

"I don't dislike you," she said, trying to make it sound genuine. "In fact I admit that I called you to my house because I was a little curious about you."

There, that ought to repair the damage. She was uncomfortable being that forward, but it had to be done.

"You seemed afraid of me," he pressed.

"You're just the first man who's been in the house since Harry ..." she didn't finish.

"I see," he said. "I don't want to be a pest about this, but could I ask another question?"

"Go ahead." At least he wasn't just walking away, like Harry had seemed to do so often.

"Why did you marry Harry?"

Her mouth dropped open. What in the world did he mean? She was so flustered that she just spoke her mind.

"Why does anyone get married? To make a family. To have security. To raise children."

"Didn't you love him?" asked Bobby.

This was insane! She was getting more and more unsettled by this conversation.

"Of course I loved him!" she said weakly.

"Well, you didn't say that ... and I just wondered."

He didn't sound like he was being sarcastic. She wished she could see his face better, to see if he was smirking or not. He went on before she could think of any response.

"And I was just thinking that some of the people you and your friends don't like are just like what you said. They wanted to make a family, and raise children. That's what they're doing, in fact."

"But they're not married!" she blurted.

"That's true," said Bobby. "But they made a family just the same. How come you and Harry never had any kids?"

He was so impertinent!

"I don't know," she said.

"Did you try?" he asked.

"Young man!" she barked, unable to keep her emotions in check any longer. "That is not a proper question to ask a lady!"

"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "It's just that you said you married him to make a family and then you didn't do that, and I guess I was just curious ... that's all."

"Why do you even care?" she said, her voice loud in the darkness.

"I'm just trying to figure out what you want from me," he said.

That didn't make any sense to Agatha at all. No matter how she thought about it, it made no sense.

"I don't want anything from you," she said.

"And yet ... you called me to your house ... not once, but three times."

"I told you," she insisted. "I was just curious about you."

"And yet, when I'm curious about you in return, you take offense," he pointed out.

She had no idea what to say. How did he talk her in circles that way?

"Can we start over?" he asked.

"What?"

"You're interested in me and I'm interested in you. Can we just start over and see if we can figure this out?"

"Start over?" She couldn't make any sense of that either.

"Yes. Hi. I'm Bobby and I'm interested in you. Would you like to spend a little time with me and get to know each other?"

She was dumfounded.

"Well ... um ..." She had no idea what to say.

"It's really very easy," he said softly. "You either do or you don't."

She thought furiously. He was asking her for a ... date ... wasn't he? Could it be that simple? Were her elaborate plans for nothing ... or were they working? She took a breath, and then it hit her: He was interested in her!

"I ... I ... oh my!" she gasped. Her stomach felt like she'd eaten something that didn't agree with her.

"Why don't we start by you telling me a little about yourself?" he prodded.

Agatha opened her front door and stepped into the dark house. She felt better immediately, just because things smelled right ... felt right. She closed the door and turned on the light. Her eyes squinted immediately. She'd been in the dark for what seemed like hours and the light seemed blindingly bright.

She almost ran to the bathroom, hoisting her dress as she ran. Thank goodness she'd left off her pantyhose because of the heat. It had felt almost lewd sitting in the park with naked legs, but she was glad, now. She sat heavily, and just in time, as her complaining bladder was finally able to relax.

She looked at her watch. It was after midnight! She'd stayed up hours past her bedtime! What if people had seen her hurrying home so late? It occurred to her that no one could have seen her. They'd all been decently in bed for hours. She flushed and headed for the bedroom by habit.

As she got out of her clothes she realized she wasn't sleepy. Not at all. They had been talking for hours. She couldn't believe it. It felt like only half an hour had gone by.

She realized that couldn't be, though. She hadn't been able to say anything, almost, for at least that long. She wasn't sure why she'd stayed at all, except that she kept trying to make her plan work. She now realized almost everything she'd done had gone against her plan, not helped it.

There in the dark, he'd wheedled things out of her, little by little, asking her questions ... hundreds of questions! As the time had somehow slipped by, she'd found out they went to school with some of the same people. He was only three years younger than she was, and had been a freshman when she was a senior.

He'd remembered the oddest things ... things about high school, and about Granger, and about people they both knew, that she remembered too. His point of view about some of those things was startlingly like her own. The pizza, for instance. They both remembered the first time pizza had been offered during lunch at school. It had had a doughy, thick crust, almost like an underdone hot roll, piled high with delicious meat and cheese and olives. Her mouth had watered when he'd remembered that.

That had been during a time when he was asking her what kind of food she liked. It had seemed like such an odd thing to talk about, there in the dark. He'd asked her all kinds of odd questions. One that popped into her mind was whether she'd ever had a tree house.

How odd! Why would anyone ask a question like that?

She dropped her slip on the bed and then turned to pick up her dress, to take it to the hamper. Her reflection caught her attention, in the mirror. Standing there in bra and panties, she stared at herself.

The closest thing he'd come to, regarding sex, during hours of idle chit chat, had been a question about whether she'd ever worn a bikini. She'd almost laughed at that one, because it was so absurd. Good girls didn't wear slutty things like that. Wasn't that obvious? He'd said something about how his mother had fits when his sisters wanted to wear them. She'd thought that was odd too. His mother was one of the worst of them ... all those girls ... had out of wedlock like that! And to think she objected to her girls wearing scanty swim suits.

In the mirror she examined her form. Her bra and panties were similar to a bikini, she supposed. She looked at her body critically. She could see the beginnings of a roll at her waist. She'd better start walking more. Her breasts were still firm. They'd always been firm. She hated her breasts ... always had. Even when Harry had said he liked them, she'd thought he was insane. One was bigger than the other, for one thing. And the tips were so pointed. Underneath they were round, like a proper breast should be, but the tops sloped down, to rise up again, like the sled-run over at old Mr. Hawkins pasture that made your sled lurch into the air for a few feet if you hit just the right spot.

That had come up in the conversation too. She'd been astonished to learn that Bobby Dalton had gone to the same pasture when the snow was new. For all she knew she'd been there with her brothers, sledding down that hill at the same time he was, way back then.

Unthinkingly she reached back and undid her bra. When it fell from her breasts, there they were, staring back at her in the mirror. She blushed. A proper lady didn't look at her own naked body in a mirror. She jerked her eyes away from those ugly breasts, with their up-thrust nipples that pointed up and out, like some kind of weird-eyed lizard or something.

She put a new bra on and got into her nightgown. She sighed with relief as she was decently covered. It was hot, but the nightgown - and the bra, of course- was a necessity. One of the topics at Tuesday tea one time had been about people sleeping naked. Gladys and Ethyl had been appropriately horrified at that idea. What was the world coming to when people acted like animals?

She lay in bed, still not sleepy. Her plan had worked, even though she knew she didn't have anything to do with that. When he'd finally said it was getting late and that he'd kept her much too long, he'd said it was fun!

More importantly, he'd suggested that he wanted to get to know her even better. She blinked in the dark, as his final words came back into her mind and struck her just as hard as they had when first spoken.

"Would you like to have a picnic with me sometime?" he'd asked.

That was when she'd realized she had to urinate. The urge had come upon her so strongly she was almost afraid she'd go right there.

That must have affected her mind, because she was quite sure that, as she got her unruly bladder under control, she'd barely been able to say that might be nice.

He'd suggested Tuesday, two days hence, but she'd said no to that immediately. That was tea day. He'd then suggested Wednesday and her mouth had said "yes" before she could think clearly.

She lay there in bed. She had a date with Bobby Dalton! Sure, it was only a picnic ... but it was a date, for all intents and purposes. She'd go somewhere with him ... alone ... and they'd have a picnic. Her stomach did flip flops. What if he raped her, once he got her alone and helpless? She dithered for a few seconds until her rational mind reminded her that he hadn't acted like a rapist while they'd talked, there in the dark.

Then she wondered how a rapist acted.

When she finally got to sleep, her sleep was troubled.

The seventh of July was a tough day for Agatha Roberts. She had managed to get through Tuesday tea without losing her mind. On Monday, as she panicked about having a picnic with Bobby, part of that was because it had been a long time since she'd been on a picnic and she wasn't sure what the protocol was. Was she still responsible for everything? She had a picnic basket, down in the basement. It hadn't been used since she'd gotten married.

She went on a cooking frenzy, which didn't work out well, because she'd almost forgotten how to cook. If it didn't come in an aluminum tray, and couldn't be heated in the oven, it took some real thought. She couldn't ask her mother for help. Or any of her friends, perish the thought. So she almost set the stove on fire trying to fry chicken, and burned hot rolls that looked more like pancakes. She was tempted to call him and cancel the whole thing.

But she had to keep her plan alive.

Gladys had smelled the burned cooking, even a whole day later, and asked about it.

"Oh, I was just trying a new recipe," said Agatha, trying to make it sound casual. "Sometimes they don't work out."

They had swallowed it and she was relieved when they finally left.

Then she drove to the grocery store, to become amazed at all the new kinds of prepared foods she hadn't paid any attention to over the years.

The next day she was a wreck as she parked in a spot at the Quivera Lake State Park, where they had agreed to meet. She had said he couldn't pick her up and he had approved, saying: "We wouldn't want any of your friends to see us together." It had been such a reasonable thing to say that she'd just agreed, completely unaware that she had said something that might cut to the bone.

It hadn't. If anything Bobby had been amazed that she'd agreed to the picnic at all. She had aroused his curiosity to a degree that surprised him. She was so completely different than any of the women he knew, with the possible exception of Renee back when he'd first met her. Not even Felicity was as tied up in societal knots as this woman appeared to be. Everything she had done, to this point, seemed to go directly against the customs of the woman he thought she was.

Of course, Agatha didn't know that as she sat, tense, wondering that was going to happen. He wasn't there yet. It was sweltering and she realized all the windows of her car were rolled up. She lowered the driver's window, but it was still so hot that sweat rolled down her temples. She got out of the car, to stand in the sun. At least there was a little breeze coming off of the lake.

She didn't know what his car looked like and didn't realize it was his until he parked right beside her, the sun glinting blindingly off his windshield. He got out, looking fresh as could be and smiling.

"I'm glad you came," he said.

She realized, with a start, that there had been some question in his mind that she would, in fact, keep their appointment.

"You look nice," he said, his voice neutral.

She'd agonized over what to wear. In this weather a thin blouse and her Bermuda shorts were the most obvious thing to wear, but that was much too forward. She'd chosen a white dress with little blue cornflowers on it. It showed her neck almost indecently, but it would be more comfortable than anything else she had to wear. For some reason, all her dresses tended to be dark, subdued colors.

"Thank you," she said automatically.

"It's too hot to eat out in the open, don't you think?" he asked. "I have something in mind, but I don't know if you'd be comfortable with it."

"What's that?" she asked. She really couldn't do anything else.

"My sisters have an old tree house out at the farm. It's shady there and has big windows in it, to let in the breeze."

She blinked. Have a picnic in a tree house? What a perfectly insane idea! Still, if it forwarded her plan ...

"At your farm?" she asked, not sure how to agree without encouraging him too much.

"Yes," he said. "My mother is visiting friends. The twins are working. There won't be anyone there to see us."

She felt a thrill of danger. He was trying to get her alone again. Then he ruined it.

"My mother would have my hide if she knew I was taking you on a picnic."

Agatha was stunned. "Why?" she yipped.

He grinned, but it wasn't a feral grin. "She disapproves of you as much as you disapprove of her."

The ride in his car was unsettling. It started that way because her feelings were hurt ... that someone could object to her having a simple picnic with a man, based on their twisted morals! And then, when she'd brought out her picnic basket, it turned out that he'd brought food too, as if he didn't trust her to properly prepare for the picnic. He'd just smiled and said this way there would be more to choose from. Now, as they drove along back roads, skulking around like teenagers trying to keep their parents from seeing them together, he was simply humming along with what was playing on the radio.

Still, it was much cooler. The windows were down. Her hair was being mussed and she hadn't brought a scarf, but she was able to hold it in place with her hands. He looked over at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"What?" She looked around.

"You're holding your head."

"Oh," she said. "My hair."

"Your hair looks fine," he said.

"It won't if I don't keep it in place," she groused.

"Agatha, I asked you to have a picnic because I like being with you ... not because of how your hair looks."

She managed not to let her mouth sag open. He said the most distressing things sometimes. He liked being with her? She didn't realize how much her shoulders hurt until she tentatively dropped her hands. Her hair whipped across her face instantly, in the wind.

"See!" she moaned.

He reached past her and opened the glove compartment.

"There's a rubber band in there somewhere," he said, putting his hand back on the wheel. "Just tie it back in a ponytail."

"Only girls wear ponytails," she objected.

"I know all kinds of women who wear a ponytail," he said. "Some of them are a lot older than you."

It was the hair that kept getting in her mouth and eyes that finally forced her to accede to his suggestion. She hadn't worn her hair like this since she was in school, but the old motions of holding her hair back and wrapping it with a rubber band came back to her easily, almost without thought.

She had to admit it was much better ... at least as long as they were in the car.

She'd never actually been to a real farm before. The old house and the stately trees clustered around it gave off a clear sense of "home", even if things were dusty and well worn. She stared at the sign at the end of the driveway that said "Dalton Bed and Breakfast."

"I didn't know you had a bed and breakfast," she said.

"We just opened not too long ago," said Bobby.

He drove through the yard and along a fenceline. The path was dirt and bumpy. Clouds of dust rose behind the car. The road led through a patch of trees and he stopped the car right in the middle of it. She got out and looked up to see the weathered, gray boards of a box-like structure, ten or fifteen feet off the ground. It did, in fact, look like a tiny house perched on the branches of a big tree. There were boards nailed to the trunk of the tree, to make a ladder of sorts, that led to a platform outside the house.

"I can't climb that," she said automatically. She was wearing sensible shoes, but they still had an inch and a half of heel on the back.

"Sure you can," he said. "I'll help you."

The first thing she thought of was that he wanted to look up her dress, as she climbed. She had on panty hose - she had already been reminded of that several times, because they felt hot and confining - but she still wasn't about to let him look up her dress as she climbed.

"We can go together," he said, making her jerk her head around to look at him. "There are actually two ladders. You can't see the other one, because it's on the side of the tree, but you'll be able to see it as we climb."

"What about the picnic baskets?" she complained. His was startlingly like her own.

"There are ropes. We can tie them off and pull them up."

This was beginning to take on the feeling of a real adventure, but Agatha stiffened her resolve. Now was not the time to have fun. If this aided her plan to unmask Bobby Dalton, then it was something she'd just have to endure.

"All right," she said.

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