The Making of a Gigolo (14) - Erica Bradford

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

Chapter Eleven

The second Friday in December was the last day of school until after the Christmas vacation. The kids would not return until the third of January. It was stressful for Erica, because the performances were scheduled for the last week in January and the sets were not done yet. The ones that were finished were so beautiful they made her heart ache. Tabitha Jenkins had become the de facto supervisor of the finishing of the artwork on the sets. Not only did she draw out the scenes on the flats, and number them for painting, she taught other kids how to do the painting itself, blending things together, where needed, to achieve one effect, and other techniques that brought the flats to breathtaking life, at least to Erica's eyes.

Another problem was that the kids knew their lines, for the most part, but most of them delivered them in a flat, emotionless way that made it obvious that some memorized speech was being given. Erica had no idea how to get the emotion that was needed out of the kids, and was also afraid they'd forget what they did know over the break.

As a result, she was a bundle of nerves when she talked to Bobby that night. She shared her concerns with him and almost got angry when he said "It will all work out." What stopped her rage was what he said next. "You're doing a fantastic job. I know you'll pull it all together."

"How?" she moaned. "Only five frames are done. There are two whole sets left to build!"

"I've got time," he said. "You and I could build one tomorrow."

"But all four sides have to be painted," she objected. "And when the kids come back, we need them to be working on roles, not sets."

"We've got more than two weeks left before the kids come back," he said. "We can get it done in that time."

"Really?" She felt hope.

"Sure," he said. "With Granger's number one women's libber and number one handyman working together, we can do anything."

Ordinarily, Erica would have bristled at the slang name he had called her, but her relief at wanting to believe him kept her mouth closed.

"Okay," she said. "Do you really have the time?" she asked.

"I've got enough time to do this," he said, sweeping his arm around. "We can work a little faster without the kids being here," he said. "Explaining things to them, and correcting their mistakes takes a lot of time. To be honest I'd rather do it myself than supervise them, but that's what you wanted, so that's what I've been doing."

"You know what you just did, don't you?" she asked, her ingrained feminist beliefs surging to the surface. "You just said that only a man can do something the right way."

"Not even close," he argued. "What I said is that I can do it faster. They've done a great job on this stuff. It just took longer, that's all."

"But you think you can do it better," she insisted.

"Yes," he said. "But isn't that just the truth? I have more experience than these kids. My skills are better developed. Put me in a room of some men ... and about half a dozen women I can think of ... and I wouldn't be able to say that anymore."

Erica hated it when he won an argument like this. And she knew he had just won the argument. She couldn't deny his reasoning. And he'd even included women in his list of people who were just as good at this kind of thing as he was.

"How's Will doing?" he suddenly asked, breaking her train of thought.

"Wonderful," she said.

"Really?" He looked surprised.

"He's adjusting very well," she said carefully.

"Did you talk to him about meeting Jake?"

"Not yet," she said. "It's only been a couple of weeks."

"I mentioned it to Jake and Tilly, and they'd be thrilled to have you guys over during the holidays."

"I'll talk to him tonight," she said, more to get him off her case than really meaning it.

"Great," he said. "You can tell me what he thinks tomorrow, and I can take you over to meet them during a break."

She sighed, realizing he'd painted her into another corner.

That night, as Erica lovingly stroked her brother's stiff penis, she thought of Bobby. That reminded her of his offer.

"Bobby said to say hi," she said.

If Will thought that was an odd thing for a woman to say while she was masturbating her brother, he didn't say so.

"He wants to introduce you to another disabled man."

"Why?" asked her brother.

Their masturbatory session, this night, was a bit more relaxed. The frantic urge to reach a climax wasn't there, and both of them were just enjoying being naked together and the touching that was going on.

"This man is in a wheelchair too," she said. "Bobby thinks that the two of you could be friends."

"Is he a vet?" asked Will.

"Bobby didn't say," she said.

"I don't know," said Will doubtfully. "You know how people look at me."

"I know how they look at me too," she said, abandoning his penis and standing to dangle her breasts over his face. "I have to put up with it, and you can't hide in this house forever."

His hand came up and caressed the side of her breast. It was the first time he'd ever touched her, and she froze.

"So beautiful," he whispered. "They make me wish I was a baby, and you were my mommy."

Her mind jangled and she stood back up.

"Pay attention here," she said, putting her hands on her hips.

"I am," he said, staring at her breasts.

"I'm going to take you to see these people," she said, as a surge of big sisterly bossiness bubbled up to the surface of her thoughts.

"People?" he asked.

"He's married," she said.

"Somebody married a cripple?" he asked. She could hear the disbelief in his voice.

She went back to her knees and reached for his penis.

"You never believed a woman would do this for you again ... did you!"

He groaned as she stroked him rapidly. "Nooo."

"I love you. I love you enough to do this for you. Why couldn't some other woman love another man like you enough to do it for him too?"

Her hand stopped moving, though she didn't let go.

"Okay, okay, just don't stop!" he moaned.

"You'll go then?"

"Yes," he said. "Now will you keep going?"

"Men!" she spat. "All they think about is sex."

By the time he had to take over for her, to finish, her fingers were already pulling at the loose skin at the opening of her sex. She continued to do that as she stood and put her nipple over the tip of his penis.

They groaned their release together.

She had another dream that night. It didn't wake her, but she remembered it vividly when she woke up the next morning. In the dream she was on her knees, stroking the penis in front of her. Her breasts were naked and lying on the edge of the bed, beside the hip above which her hand slid up and down the rigid column of man flesh. She was smiling in her dream, waiting for that man flesh to fountain its warm offering, so she could have another glorious orgasm. In her dream, she was able to make it spurt all by herself. She heard the groan that signaled it was about to happen and rose, to rub her tingling nipple over the shiny head of the penis that would make her feel so good any second now. Then, as it spurted and she felt the thrills, she looked up at the face of the man on the bed.

That face was Bobby Dalton's

The dream was still vivid in her mind as she entered the school. It was eerily quiet in the halls. She'd had to get a key, since no one else would be in the building during the vacation. Even in Granger they locked the school at night. She left the door unlocked, so that Bobby could get in when he got there. It wasn't until she approached the auditorium doors that she heard the banging of a nail being driven home, and knew the man whose face had been in her dream was already there. She felt flutters in her belly at the thought of seeing it again, this time for real.

All this turmoil confused her. Bobby had asked to be her friend. That alone had been odd and somewhat mysterious, because he had acted just like that ... a friend. Other than the few times his eyes fell on her breasts, there was no indication at all that he had any sexual thoughts about her. Why, then, did she have them about him?

She was wearing what she thought of as her "work clothes," and rather than engaging Bobby in conversation, she just walked in and asked what needed to be done. He greeted her and put her to work using the radial arm saw to cut the two by fours that would be nailed together to make the two sides of the frame he didn't already have laid out on the floor. He was working on a forty-five degree brace in one corner, and told her the lengths needed from memory.

She struggled with the sixteen feet long two by fours and laid three of them out on the table of the saw, automatically checking it to see if they were straight and un-warped. One of the boards she'd picked up had an slight twist in it and she took it back to the shelf to pick another. She glanced at Bobby, who was on his hands and knees, measuring something with a tape measure. The jeans he was wearing were tight over his backside and she caught herself standing there, staring at it.

Flustered, she turned away and the end of the board she was carrying ran into one of the tree sets. She stopped to make sure she hadn't damaged anything, and then went back to the saw. They were using forty-five degree miter joints at the corners. Then bracing was put in each corner on the inside, using half laps that had to be cut and chiseled by hand, but which ended up making the frame the same thickness all the way around. Vertical struts or studs, as Bobby called them, were butt joined to the top and bottom of the frame so that, when canvas was stretched over it, there would be some support behind the canvas. Bobby had chosen to use dowels on the ends of those studs, instead of flat metal pieces, which would have had to lay on top of the wood, unless more time consuming chisel work was done to keep them from being what Bobby called "proud," which meant sticking up above the surface of the wood.

What that meant was that the frame pieces had to be cut first and laid out to make sure everything fit, because once the bottom of the frame was attached and the glue in the dowel holes set, it wasn't coming apart again. Bobby called it "dry fitting."

She needed three eight-foot-long boards, with forty-five degree miters on each end. To save time, Erica lined up the two sixteen footers and, using a measuring tape, calculated where to cut them in the middle with them laid side by side so that she'd only have to make one pull of the saw to end up with four eight-foot boards, each already having a forty-five degree miter on one end. She thought she was being clever because she'd seen Bobby do this, but he hadn't explained it to her.

The problem was that the saw table was only four feet long and there was enough of each board hanging off of it that the boards wanted to tip. She had to press down on them and push them against the fence to keep them in place. She reached for the switch and turned on the motor and then reached for the handle that would pull the motor and saw blade across the boards.

Strong hands suddenly clamped onto her waist and pulled her backwards. She yelped in surprise and the boards tipped. Her back ran into what felt like a brick wall that had padding on it. A hand left her waist and reached to flip the motor switch off.

She turned, feeling the hand on the left side of her waist slide across her back and stared into blue eyes that were only inches from her own.

"What are you doing?!" she tried to demand.

"Saving your fingers," he said. She could smell his breath. It smelled like syrup to her.

"What are you talking about!?" she said.

He had her turn around.

"Set it up again," he said.

"I already had it set up," she complained.

"Just set it up again."

She did. She hadn't taken the time to make a pencil mark where the actual cuts would be made. She'd just held everything in place and used the tape to get it where she wanted it. She did that again.

"Okay," she said, her voice tight.

"Don't move," he said.

He went around behind the saw and turned the crank that she knew raised and lowered the motor, and the saw blade with it. Then he came back around the saw.

"Watch," he said, standing next to her.

He reached for the handle and pulled the motor towards them. The blade was much too high to cut the boards, and slid over them. To her horror it also slid over the tips of two of the fingers on the hand she was holding the boards against the fence with.

"But it didn't look like that would happen!" she gasped.

"Now set it up and use a combination square to make a line, like I showed you," he ordered.

She was shaken by what she'd just seen, so didn't argue with him.

"Good," he said, as she did the calculations again to cut both boards in the right place with just one cut. "Now the line."

She used the square and a pencil to draw the diagonal line across both boards and then put them back up against the fence. The only way she could get the boards to lie flat was with her fingertips across the line she had just drawn.

"When you're going to cut long stock like that," he said. "Ask for help, okay?"

He went to the ends of the boards and held them up so she could move her fingers to one side of the line. Gritting her teeth she turned on the saw and made the cut. It was suddenly quiet as she turned the saw off.

"Thank you," she said.

"Sorry I had to break my word," he said.

"What?"

"I had to touch you. You told me never to touch you again."

She examined his voice and his face, because she thought he must be making fun of her, but he was completely serious.

"That's not what I meant," she said.

"It's what you said," he responded.

"You touched my breasts last time, not my waist!"

"I'm sorry about that too," he said. "I should have thought of something else."

She remembered what he'd said, back then, about whether he should have slapped her instead. She knew he'd been right. She had been freaked out about Will, and he had jerked her out of that and made her face the issue.

"I might have overreacted a little bit," she said.

"Well anyway, I promised, and I'm sorry I broke it."

"Oh for Pete's sake, Bobby!" she snapped. "You saved my fingers! And I was only talking about touching me sexually anyway!"

"I didn't touch you sexually," he said. "I just got your attention."

He said it so calmly that it just seemed funny to her ... that he'd say touching her breasts wasn't sexual. She'd only been touching them herself for a few weeks ... at least in this new way she was doing it ... and it was completely sexual. All the stress and confusion, and pent up emotions she had been dealing with recently finally found an outlet and she started laughing. She felt stupid, but couldn't stop. Eventually she got dizzy and had to sit down on the floor.

He stood there, looking down at her, with a silly grin on his face. It was the kind of grin that people can't help, when someone else is laughing that hard, even if they don't see what's so funny.

She finally got a deep breath, and got her laughter under control.

"You sure got my attention," she giggled, and then was laughing again, and ended up rolling on the floor.

He still stood there, until her laughter finally died away. Then he simply held out a hand. She gripped it and felt like she was weightless as he pulled her up.

"You feel better now?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

"I do," she said, smiling. "I really do."

"Someday you'll have to share what was so funny with me," he said.

"You're what's so funny," she said. "You're the strangest man I've ever met. You're nothing like I thought you'd be the first time I saw you."

"And that's funny?"

"It's too complicated to go into right now," she said.

"Well, I'm glad that meeting me has given you a good laugh," he said. "Laughter is good for you."

"See what I mean?" she sighed. "Most men would be furious if a woman laughed at them."

"I guess I'm not most men," said Bobby. The words came easily to his tongue. He had said them to many more women than Erica Bradford.

They made good progress for the next two hours, and got one whole frame completely done. When the stress had exited her body through that laughter, Erica had been glad to feel it go. She still didn't understand why she got so worked up around Bobby, but once she was relaxed, and paying attention to the work, it didn't seem so bad anymore and she enjoyed that feeling of being at ease.

"Time for a break," announced Bobby. "Did you talk to Will about Tilly and Jake?"

"I did. He'd be happy to meet them," she lied.

"Somehow I doubt that's quite how he put it," said Bobby, "but that's Okay, because I really think it will be good for him. I told them I might bring you over today. If you feel good about it we can get Will over there next time."

"Okay then," she said dusting off her clothing. "They're going to have to take me like I am."

"Perfect. You'll have to take them like they are too," he said.

She relocked the front door and reminded herself to ask him how he'd gotten in. Bobby was waiting for her in his car. He didn't hold the door open for her, just going to his own door instead. She noticed things like that, and she appreciated him not coddling her. He drove her to a neat little bungalow with a picket fence around it. Though the garden was brown and dead looking now, Erica could see evidence that it was carefully tended in warmer weather.

They were met by a woman who was a little older than Bobby, who had her brown hair in a bun and an apron on. She smiled with both her eyes and her mouth and kissed Bobby on the cheek before expressing her delight that Erica had come to meet them.

Bobby was immediately besieged by two children, a boy who looked to be eight or nine, and who had black hair that was cut short, and a little girl of about three or four.

"Unca Bobby!" squealed the girl as he scooped her up into his arms. She hugged his neck tightly and rained kisses on his cheek. The boy stood, shifting from foot to foot, staring at Erica. Even at eight he was looking at her chest. That didn't last long, though. As Bobby put the girl down, the boy grabbed his hand.

"I have a new model almost done!" he said excitedly. "Come on! You have to see it!"

Erica found herself left alone with Tilly, who was looking after the children and, apparently, her brother. The woman turned.

"Come on," she said, as if they were already old friends. "I'll take you to meet Jake."

If she hadn't had so much exposure to her brother, Erica was sure she would have embarrassed herself when she met Jake Johnson. He was missing one arm completely, and the leg on that side had been badly mangled. Even the pants covering that leg couldn't hide how twisted it was. His face, though, was quite normal, with a bushy brown moustache and a wide smile. Erica noticed he looked at her face, instead of elsewhere.

She looked at his face too, instead of his disability. It only seemed polite.

They ate lunch with the Johnsons, and Erica learned that the boy's name was David, and that he was eight. Meredith, the girl, was four. Erica couldn't help but think about the fact that a man in this condition had somehow been able to impregnate his wife, not once, but twice, and that made her feel quite good for Will's sake. She knew it would take a very special woman to accept Will the way he was, but this couple proved it could happen. It was at least cause for some measure of hope.

Then it was back to the school, to work on the last remaining flat. They had just started when there was pounding on the double steel doors that led out of the stage and onto the driveway outside the back of the auditorium. Erica went to see who was there. It was Tabitha Jenkins.

"What are you doing here?" asked Erica.

"Mister D said you guys would be working on sets," said the girl, peering past Erica. "I don't have anything better to do, so I thought I could maybe do some painting."

"That would be wonderful!" sighed Erica. It seemed as if she was being given a number of gifts this first Christmas she was in Granger.

"Is he here?" asked Tabitha, still leaning to see past Erica.

Erica had seen and heard what was in Tabitha's tone of voice before. She had heard that spark of excitement and interest in a hundred high school girls' voices as they asked about a particular boy ... or man. It had always made her impatient.

"Don't tell me you have a crush on him," sighed Erica.

Tabitha got very suddenly very alert, and leaned back.

"Of course not!" she said. "He's old!"

Erica's eyes narrowed as she saw the complex behavior of this teenage girl. That she was infatuated with Bobby was obvious, at least to Erica. But now she was trying to deny that. Tabitha was a senior, almost, if not already eighteen. Bobby was single. He was, in fact, eight or ten years older than Tabitha, but a relationship between a man and woman like that wasn't unheard of. Why, then, was this girl trying to deny the attraction? Obviously there was some kind of social conditioning that caused Tabitha to feel like it wasn't all right for her to be infatuated with an older man. Erica agreed. A young, inexperienced girl didn't stand a chance going up against an older, predatory man.

Erica blinked. Bobby wasn't predatory. She felt uncomfortable that she'd dropped him back into that category.

"He's here," she said, standing back. "Come on in, but don't make a fool of yourself. He really is too old for you, you know."

Tabitha had the grace to look embarrassed, but tried to cover that up too by saying, "Of course. He's just cool, that's all."

Erica knew that Tabitha didn't need any help to get started on her work. There was plenty to be done, and the girl would be fine on her own. Erica went back to help Bobby finish the last flat frame.

Ten minutes later Erica made the last very careful cuts and delivered the pieces to Bobby. She bent over to put them on the floor next to him and then stood up, bending backwards to stretch her back. That was another thing about her huge breasts that she hated. Their weight made her back hurt if she bent over for too long. She looked over to where Tabitha had started working on the trees. She had positioned them so that she could look past them at where Erica and Bobby were working. Erica wanted to laugh at the girl's transparency, but didn't. She decided to go talk to this foolish girl and, hopefully, educate her on the sense of being liberated from men.

When she got there, she stopped and stared. Tabitha had taken a sponge and cut it into the shape of a leaf. She was dabbing the sponge all over the round portion of the cardboard that was supposed to represent the mass of foliage on the tree. She was using three different colors of green, and the effect was astonishing. Erica walked farther away and looked from a distance. The tree looked amazingly real.

"Where did you get that idea?" she asked, walking back to the girl.

"It just seemed like it would be easier to do this than paint them all by hand," said Tabitha, continuing to dab here and there.

"Well it's brilliant," said Erica, "and it looks fantastic."

"Thanks," said the girl.

"Can I ask you a serious question?"

"Sure," said Tabitha.

"Why are you a cheerleader?"

Tabitha looked at the teacher.

"I know you're all hot on women's liberation and all that," she said. "But I think that's just not very hip."

"Explain it to me," said Erica. "You're obviously a bright and talented girl ... young woman. You could have a career in art if you wanted to."

"I do want to," said Tabitha. "I'm going to go to college and get an art degree."

"So why do you flaunt your body in front of men as a cheerleader?" asked Erica. For perhaps the first time in her life she was actually interested in the answer she'd get. Before this, she had simply dismissed women who did things like that as deluded simpletons.

"I like it," said Tabitha. "It's fun."

"That's what I don't get," moaned Erica. "You know what those men are thinking about when they look at you."

"Sure," chirped the teenager. She nodded and her long, blond pony tail bobbed. "I know. That's part of the fun."

"I really don't get that," said Erica. "Men look at me and I hate it."

"Well that's something I don't understand," said the girl. "I mean you've got the bitchinest body of any woman I ever saw. I'd kill to have your body, but you're all uptight about it."

"But all those men want is sex!" moaned Erica.

"Maybe," said Tabitha. "That doesn't mean they're going to get it, though. I'm not going to develop round heels, but it makes me feel good that they want me. But it's not just that that makes me love cheerleading. I mean I really think we build pep too. There's something about getting a crowd all worked up that makes me feel like I have power or something. And the boys love it. The crowd gets them going and they do better."

"You know you're debasing yourself when you use your body to get attention," said Erica.

"Come on, Ms. Bradford," sighed the girl. "Get with it! This is the seventies, not the stone age. I know all about how women were put down in the past and all that, but it's not that way now. I mean my mother never even thought about going to college, but I already have my acceptance letter and I got a scholarship too. I don't have to get married right out of high school, like my mother did, just to get by. I can pick and choose what man I want to end up with. You can too. I just don't see why you're so anti-man."

"I'm not anti-man," argued Erica. "I'm pro-woman. There's a difference."

"Well I don't see it. Take Mister D over there for instance. He's killer cute, even if he is old. I love it when he looks at me. I feel all wiggly inside, and all grown up somehow. And when he talks to me, it's just like we've known each other all our lives. I like being around him. I wish he was younger. When I'm around him I just want to yell sock it to me!"

She blushed.

"I didn't mean that. Not like it sounded. But I've seen how you look at him too. You know what I'm talking about. But all this women's lib stuff makes you fight with him. It's counterproductive ... you know? Here's this smokin' guy, and you're killer gorgeous, but you don't dig it. It just seems like a waste to me."

Erica decided to ignore part of the girl's comment. Erica was quite sure that she never looked at Bobby with anything other than professional detachment.

"I don't need a man to be fulfilled," insisted Erica.

"Well," said the cheerleader, starting to put new leaves on the cardboard again, "I don't know about you, but someday I want to have kids, and the last time I heard anything about it, you sort of had to have a guy to do that with."

"So you want to get married, and have children, and give up your career and depend on some man?" Erica thought maybe that would get through to this stubborn girl.

"Sometimes I think about getting married." She paused, and seemed to reflect. "It's kind of like in Brigadoon, when Fiona says she'll get married when she meets somebody who makes her think about getting married."

She tapped another dozen leaves onto the cardboard tree while Erica tried to come up with an argument against that, and couldn't.

"Yeah, I suppose marriage would be okay," continued Tabitha. She changed colors and kept dabbing. "But it's not required. Not anymore. My mother would scream if she ever heard me say that, but the fact is I know maybe three of four women right here in Granger who aren't married and had kids, and they didn't have to give up their careers to do it. I don't have to tie myself to a man to have a good life. Not that I'm against that, especially if he turns out to be anything like Mister D."

"Be careful," cautioned Erica. "I haven't met many men like Bobby."

"I know," said Tabitha. "That's why he's so cool. There are probably a hundred boys who'd love to get in my panties, but they don't have a chance. And there he is, the only man I've seen that I'd do something really stupid with ... and he behaves himself. Life isn't fair, you know?"

"He is too old for you," moaned Erica, feeling shocked that this young girl would be so frank about how she felt. It was ironic she didn't think about how liberated Tabitha was, to be able to admit she wanted something like that ... right out loud ... and to an authority figure at that!

"I know," said the girl. "But you can dream, right? I'm copacetic with that."

Erica went back to work, wondering if she could call her life copacetic ... and if she could ... was that a good thing?

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