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

Chapter Thirty

She wouldn't walk beside him. When he caught up to her and tried to walk alongside her she stopped, and faced away from him. Her shoulders were tense. No matter where he stepped, to try to get her to face him, she turned away. He knew better than to touch her. Something told him not to speak either.

When she started away, he simply followed her. They went for four blocks that way, his footsteps echoing hers, until she turned, suddenly.

"Go away!" she said.

"No."

"I don't want to talk to you!"

"I know."

She turned and stalked off. He followed her all the way home. She opened the front door and went in, slamming it behind her. He didn't know what to do then, so he just sat down on the front steps.

Eventually he lay back on the porch.

Prudence woke him when she got home. Kyle and Katherine were tired, and wanted him to pick them up. He did, since Prudence was burdened with the picnic basket.

"She wouldn't talk to me. I don't think I should go in," he said.

"This is my house," said Prudence. "Put them to bed, will you?"

He had to read them a story, but they fell asleep in the middle of it. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of either Prudence or Connie, and he thought to just leave.

Constance was sitting on the step, where he had been earlier. He sat down beside her, but didn't touch her.

"My mother says I'm an idiot," she said.

"I don't think you're an idiot."

"She says you love me."

He didn't answer that. He was still confused about how Prudence had known anything was going on between him and Connie at all.

"She says I love you too." Even though she had said she loved him in the past, she didn't sound convinced at all that her mother was right.

Bobby still sat there, silent.

"She says I loved you before Tim, and then after him, and that it was because of who you are ... who you always were." She looked at him for the first time. "What the heck does that mean?"

"I don't know what to think," he admitted.

"I'm so angry with you!" she said.

"I know."

"Every other woman in the whole stinking world gets to have your baby ... but not me ... oh no ... not Constance!" She stood up, agitated. "And do you know why?"

He had no clue, so he just sat there.

"Because when I have your baby, it will only be when we're married, and I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth!"

She stomped up the steps and turned the knob of the door. She paused. She turned back around. Bobby was still sitting, staring straight ahead.

"You know what makes me the maddest of all?" she snapped.

He turned to look over his shoulder.

"What makes me just fume is that she's right. I do love you!" Her voice was gruff.

Then she went inside and slammed the door.

Erica walked slowly beside Terry. He was pushing Owen. The night was glorious, and warm.

"Thanks for coming," she said.

"My pleasure," he responded. "I wanted to meet Owen."

"Just Owen?"

She could see his smile in the dim ambient light.

"You have interesting friends," he said. "I'm glad I got to meet them too." They walked on in silence before he spoke again. "What was up with that table full of women who were glaring at us?"

"Oh, those are the town biddies," said Erica. "They think they're better than everybody else. I had a child out of wedlock, and that puts me on the wrong side of the tracks. You too, now."

"Oh horrors," he said mildly. "There goes my chance at being invited to Tupperware parties."

She didn't smile. "Some of my co-workers were there tonight too," she sighed. "None of them came to meet you. It's really disheartening."

"If they have a problem with you, then I suspect they aren't my kind of people anyway," he said.

She reached out and took his arm, squeezing it against her breast.

It only took fifteen minutes for them to get to her house. He'd offered to drive her, but she'd said she wanted to walk, and that Owen's carriage wouldn't fit in his car. When he offered to walk with her, she accepted. Now she turned to him and took his hand.

"It's a long way back to your car," she said.

"It's no big deal."

"And it's a long way back to Hutch."

"I can make it."

"I'd feel really bad if you got in an accident, just because you came to see me." Her voice was soft.

"I'm not going to get into an accident," he said. "Seeing you always pumps me up."

She dropped his hand.

"If you think I'm just going to beg you to stay all night, you have another think coming, buster!" Her voice was stern.

He smiled. Then he yawned, theatrically.

"Wow, it's really late!" he said, looking at his wrist. She could see the watch there, but it was obviously too dark to read the face. "And I'm almost out of gas too! Is there anyplace open in town to get gas?"

"Not this late," said Erica.

"Man!" he said, sounding disappointed. "I didn't plan this well at all. Is there any way ... any way at all ... that you could see your way clear to let me sleep on the couch? I won't mess anything up, and I'll leave early ... just as soon as a gas station opens up."

She opened the door and he lifted Owen up onto the porch, buggy and all. He followed her to what was obviously her bedroom, where there was a crib in one corner. Owen was sleeping, and didn't wake up when she laid him down. She turned.

"My brother might come home, so you can't sleep in his bed," she said. She knew that wasn't likely. Ever since Christy had accepted his proposal, he'd all but lived at her house. "And the couch is lumpy. You came all the way here to see me, and it doesn't seem right to make you sleep on a lumpy couch."

"Anyplace is fine," he said. He looked at her bed. "What about this bed?"

"That's my bed," she said.

"That's a pretty big bed," he said. "And you're not exactly a huge person."

She got tired of playing games, and just undressed. He watched her, standing stock still as her pale skin was exposed. She pushed away a teensy feeling of insecurity, and stood before him, naked.

"I'm exhausted," he said. "I'm absolutely sure I'd wreck my car if I tried to drive home right now," he sighed. "I accept your kind offer of a bed for the night."

He wasn't exhausted. That became clear over the next two hours. He wasn't averse to breast milk either. When it dripped on him, he simply solved the problem by sucking both nipples until it didn't drip any more. He didn't tell her how proud he was that she had half a dozen orgasms while he did that, or how lucky he felt to be here with her. She would find that out, months later, when they were in bed again, and could talk about anything together. But he showed her how much passion she had unleashed in him.

He showed her four times during the night.

He also didn't leave at the crack of dawn, as he had suggested he would. And, when they woke up, the bed was a mess.

Jeff Hamilton's conversation with Mirriam on the drive back to the B&B was remarkably similar to Terry's.

"You have fascinating friends," he said.

"They're good people," said Mirriam.

"I'd forgotten about the social flows in a small town," he said. "I'm glad you have some friends to buffer you from the hoity toity types."

"Was it that obvious?" she asked.

"I came from a small town myself," he said. "It's the same everywhere, sadly."

"Your reputation is ruined, you know," she said. "It was bad enough that you stayed at our place. Going to the picnic with me and dancing with me has sealed your fate."

She parked the car and they got out. The only light on in the house was in the room where both of them knew that Randy and Wanda had probably spent the whole evening in bed. They had elected not to go to the party.

"Doesn't seem fair," he sighed, as they walked in the back door.

"You didn't have to go," she reminded him. "Had you stayed away, your reputation might still be intact."

"That's not it," he said. "I don't mind if my reputation is sullied, not if it's for a good reason." He looked sad. "But it wasn't damaged for a good reason."

"Whatever are you talking about?" she asked, facing him.

"All those people think something is going on between us," he said, still looking sad. "But it's not. I get the reputation, but not the fun of earning it. That's just not fair."

Mirriam felt the thrill that she'd always felt when a man desired her. It had been that way with Joe, and then Ted, and even Bobby. She wondered if she really was the slut that all those horrible women named her as. All the things that Prudence had said to her came rushing back into her mind. He was handsome. He was ... temporary ... in the sense that it wasn't likely that the relationship would get complicated and require difficult decisions. She was on the pill. She had to be with Bobby around. Even so, she hadn't been in bed with Bobby in some time. She took a deep breath, and saw his eyes go to her expanding bosom.

"Do you think you're capable of earning your reputation?" she asked.

His face lit up, and she knew she was lost.

Bobby drove into the yard and parked. There were only two lights on in the house, one upstairs, and in his mother's room. The twins' car was there, but there were no lights on in the barn. They had to work the next day, and had probably gone to bed already. He decided to go talk to his mother about Constance.

The only thing that saved them from embarrassment was that he heard her low moan through the door as his hand fell on the knob. He knew that moan well, and it stayed his hand. Then he heard the bedsprings squeaking. He was amazed that he hadn't realized they squeaked like that. He'd never noticed, while he was making them squeak. Another low tone came through the door, and told him she wasn't taking her pleasure alone. He'd forgotten about Jeff.

Oddly, he felt a measure of relief. He'd never objected to her relationship with Ted Brandywine. That was her business. He loved her, and had loved loving her in ways that sons aren't expected to love their mothers, but he wasn't jealous when she sought passion in the arms of another man.

It made him think of Constance. He envisioned her in some faceless man's arms. It wasn't Tim. Thinking of her with Tim didn't cause him pain at all. But this faceless man in his imagination brought thoughts of murder to his mind. It was an instant, hot rage, and it scared him.

He stepped back. Carefully he tiptoed out of the house, easing the door closed. The image of Constance, naked with another man wouldn't leave his brain. He took his boots off and went back inside. Normally, he didn't drink, but he knew there was a fifth of bourbon in the cupboard. It had been there for years, and there was dust on the bottle. It was a little over half full.

The bottle rolled away from his bed, on the floor, empty, before he finally found the blackness of sleep that drove Connie from his mind.

July passed, quickly for some, and slowly for others.

For Mirriam, it passed quickly, and she knew the first two weeks of August would fly by just as fast. She'd fallen hard for Jeff. It wasn't just his lovemaking, which was ardent and physical in a way that couldn't be pretended. He was almost insatiable. At the same time, he did other things with her that involved no sex at all, unless anticipation is part of sex.

He showed her the research site, and the results they'd found. He explained that the tall grass was dying out because tall grass required two things, besides water, to thrive. One was fire, which was no problem. But the other was buffalo. It was the hooves of the buffalo that had aerated the soil, more than a hundred years past. And their droppings fertilized it. Cattle, with their flat hooves, compacted the soil, instead of loosening it, and most ranchers wanted grass that baled better than the thick stalks of the tall grass did. What had covered the plains back then, was now retained only in three or four places. Less than a two hundred thousand acres of it remained, and that probably wouldn't last long, without some kind of preservation attempt.

She listened, fascinated as he proposed rebuilding the bison herds, and letting them roam on vast preserves. His eyes lit up when he talked about that. But the light in his eyes died when he admitted that economics probably wouldn't allow it. The land was too fruitful when used for other things, and money drove everything.

Then, at night, he came to her room, or she to his, and they coupled like teenagers who had just discovered the joys of sex.

For Bobby the time dragged. His repair business was doing well, but there was no joy in it any longer. Christy had Will. Jill had Sal. Rhonda was wrapped up in working with Renee, and raising Elizabeth. Janet had met a man at the supermarket and was dating him. Liz's ardor, or her husband's, had died down and she hadn't called him in months. Annie had a boyfriend, and Felicity had her hands full with taking care of children and trying to make Chester's remaining years as joyful as possible. Misty was on the road, and Agatha was probably going to get married. That man had come to see Erica from Hutchinson, on the 4th of July. His mother had a lover now, and he knew better than to even think about Prudence.

He was left with Renee and maybe Erica, here in town, and Amanda in Hutch. And the twins, of course. Them or, finding other women. He knew he could. Paula would find other women for him, if he asked her too. For that matter, Felicity might too. She had lots of rich, probably bored friends.

But he didn't feel like doing that. Somehow, even going and finding Erica, or Renee or Amanda seemed like too much work now. He loved Connie, but he'd ruined that. And that ruined everything else for him. He couldn't even work up any excitement about the twins, which bothered them no end, because they thought he was mad at them for something. They'd even talked to him about it.

"It's not you guys," he'd said.

"Well what is it then?"

They didn't know what had happened in his room that night. All they knew was that his black mood was gone when he and Constance came out in the morning. They simply thought she had finally climbed on the Bobby express, like they had.

"I've just got a few problems to work out," he said, vaguely.

"You're not sick, are you?" asked Betty. She looked stricken. "Bobby! You don't have cancer ... do you?"

"No." He smiled and hugged her. "It's nothing like that."

He spent lots of time away from home, rather than face them. But his suicidal depression didn't return. Rather, he accepted the fact that he'd blown it. He hadn't recognized how Connie felt about him in time to do anything about it. He spent hours up in the tree house, trying to figure out if he'd known, how that might have changed things.

His dilemma was that he knew his activities with all the women had created good things ... positive things. It wasn't just the babies. In a sense, they were side effects. He didn't like thinking of it like that, but it seemed true. But the women would have been just as happy, as far as he could figure out, even if there hadn't been any babies.

Connie was right. He had loved each woman, each in her own unique way, and they had loved him. But, like Agatha had said, it wasn't the marrying kind of love - for any of them - and they moved on.

That left him here ... alone. He had helped them all ... but he couldn't help himself.

Constance didn't call. And he couldn't call her. Even her last outburst ... her confession of love ... had sounded hurt, as if she didn't want to love him. She loved him ... maybe a fraction of the amount she had loved Tim. She'd gotten over Tim. Maybe it would be easier for her to get over him too.

He determined to let her do that. What was important was her happiness. He had his work. He knew he'd perk up soon, and start making the rounds of his children again.

That would have to be enough.

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