The Making of a Gigolo (15) - Agatha Roberts

by Lubrican

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Chapter Six

Bobby didn't intend to be quite as "straight" with Agatha as she'd been with him. She'd told him all her secrets, but he only intended to talk about things she didn't know about him ... that might affect her.

Agatha pulled the covers up to her neck, instinctively.

"May I come in?"

She couldn't speak. He was already in! Her mind was trying to process what he'd meant. He took a few steps toward her and her eyes widened.

"I just want to talk," he said.

She stared at him.

"Can I sit down?"

His eyes went to the edge of the bed she was lying in. There was no chair nearby, so his meaning was obvious. She felt her body tremble and realized she was terrified. She visualized something inside her saying, "Get a grip, Agatha!" and tried to relax.

"What about?" she whispered.

"Us," he said. He still hadn't sat.

Her mind danced all around that small two letter word. What "us" was he talking about?

"Why do you think I asked you to do things with me?" His question was soft and she had to strain to hear it. She thought back to that night in the park, when he'd stopped to talk to her.

"You said you wanted to get to know me," she said.

"I understand now why you accepted," he said. "I thought you wanted to get to know me too. I thought both of us were trying to understand the other side a little better."

She felt a stab of guilt, because she knew he really had been trying to get to know her ... while she was plotting against him.

"I know you feel guilty," he said. "But I don't want you to."

She almost sat up, so astonished was she. He sat, suddenly, on the edge of the bed. She tensed, but his hands were in his lap, so she relaxed.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because we did get to know each other a little bit," he said. "And that did affect the way you thought about me ... us. And you decided not to do what you originally planned. You took the time to look more closely and it was good for both of us. It doesn't really matter what you planned to do, because the end result was positive."

She tried to wrap her mind around his reasoning. It sounded so logical, but there had to be something wrong with it. If she explained it to Ethyl that way, Ethyl would laugh and say she'd just been fooled.

But she knew she hadn't been fooled. They hadn't put on an elaborate act, like she had. They'd all just been themselves and welcomed her, despite the fact that she thought they were all ... She didn't like the words that came to mind, so she stopped thinking about that.

"You put on an act," he said.

She tensed again. How did he read her mind like that?!

"But I did too," he went on. "And I owe it to you to tell you that."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I thought about seducing you," he said.

She stopped breathing, until her lungs couldn't take it, and she gasped. He looked away.

"That isn't really the right word," he said. "I don't think I've ever actually seduced anybody." He wasn't thinking of his sisters. "It's more like I got to know a woman, and liked her, and she liked me too, and we just gave in to our normal urges." He looked back at her. "You probably think it's wrong to do that." He looked away again. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I might be guilty of some of the things you didn't like about me when we first met. I've been resisting the urge to flirt with you ... putting on an act ... just like you did."

He smiled a funny crooked kind of smile.

"It's ironic, kind of, when you think about it. You were pretending to be interested in me and I was pretending that I wasn't interested in you."

Agatha's mind was whirling. There was so much to think about, all at the same time. He'd almost ... not quite, but almost ... admitted that he catted around with different women. That played to her old passions that involved judgment and condemnation. But he'd said he wanted to flirt with her too!

That played to passions she didn't even know were inside her. Still, he had admitted that he had been concealing his true thoughts and that made her wary. What else was he concealing? Why was he telling her all this?

"So I wanted to apologize to you too," he said.

She couldn't figure out what he was apologizing for. Merely controlling one's libido wasn't anything to be sorry for. He hadn't actually lied to her, like she had to him. He'd said he was pretending he wasn't interested in her, which didn't make sense, because he kept taking her places.

"Wait a minute," she said. "If you were pretending you weren't interested ... why did you keep asking me to do things with you?"

"I like being around you," he said.

That astonished her. "Why?" she asked.

"You're different than other women I know," he said. "You're a little stuffy and we believe different things ... think about things differently ... but I think that's what makes you so interesting."

Part of her mind told her she'd just been insulted, but another part suggested that he'd merely overlooked what he thought of as flaws, which was an odd kind of compliment. He stood up suddenly and she flinched.

"Anyway," he said. "I just wanted you to know that both of us weren't being entirely honest. I think we really have started over now. I hope we can still be friends."

He was going to leave. There was so much that was still murky and unsaid.

"You said you thought about seducing me," she blurted.

He stood, his face passive.

"Yes."

"Why?" she asked.

He smiled for some reason. "You're young. You're pretty. You lost your husband and are probably lonely."

She was aghast.

"You'd take advantage of me like that?"

"It's not taking advantage when you get to know each other and share something that makes both your lives more pleasant," he said patiently. "I know you don't think about it that way, but I do. If you came to want that ... needed that ... and I did too ... why would we deny ourselves the pleasure?"

"Because it's wrong!" she gasped.

"Is it?" he asked. "Is it wrong to hold hands before you're married?"

"You're not talking about holding hands!" she said.

"Is it wrong?" he insisted.

"Of course not," she said. "But ..." He interrupted her.

"Is it wrong to share a few kisses before you're married?"

She just looked at him.

"Come on, Agatha. We're just having a conversation here. This is part of being friends ... exchanging ideas ... talking about thorny issues."

"No," she said, warily.

"How about hugs?"

"No."

"Not even if you press your body against him?"

Her eyes narrowed. This wasn't fair, somehow.

"Where do you draw the line?" he asked. "What is it you can't do until you're married?"

"Have sex!," she said firmly.

"Isn't kissing and hugging and handholding part of having sex?" he asked.

"Of course not," she said.

"But all those things ... when you do them ... they make you want to have sex. I mean it's not quite that simple, because you don't want to have sex with every person you kiss, but the whole point is that if you want to kiss them, and hold their hands, and hug them, and touch them ... that kind of relationship usually evolves to the point where you also want to make love with them. That can be part of making love, the way I see it."

"You're confusing me," she complained.

"I'm not confusing you," he said. "You're confusing yourself. You believe things that don't make sense from my point of view. That doesn't mean you're wrong and it doesn't mean I'm wrong."

"Somebody has to be wrong!" she objected.

"Why?" he asked. "If I wanted to kiss you, and hug you, and touch you, and you didn't want that to happen, it would be wrong if I did those things. But if you did want them ... why would it be wrong?"

"If I did that my friends wouldn't talk to me!" she said.

"So your friends are the ones who control what you can and cannot do?" he asked.

"That's not fair," she said weakly.

"You already said Ethyl won't ever talk to you again, because she saw you with me. All we were doing was standing there talking. I don't have any friends who would stop talking to me just because I took you to get a new furnace."

"I know she's not really a friend," admitted Agatha. "I thought she was, but I know better now."

"Then why do you care about her rules anymore?" he asked. "Why would you let what she thinks run your life? I'm not suggesting that means you should let me seduce you or anything." He grinned and went on. "It's kind of late for that anyway. I don't think you can seduce someone who knows that's what you're trying to do ... but that's not the point. You are young, and pretty, and interesting. You have a lot of life left to live and there's no reason in the world you can't have some fun and companionship while you live it. You could meet another man, fall in love again, have children. But you can only do all that if you let yourself do it, and stop worrying about Ethyl and everybody else."

This time, when he turned to go, she didn't stop him. She had too much to think about already.

After he left, she thought about everything he'd said. The last things he'd said were uppermost in her mind. She tried to imagine herself with a man, doing those things Bobby had suggested she could do ... falling in love ... having children ... spending time with this man doing fun things. The only men she knew were husbands of her friends and she couldn't imagine herself with any of them. She hadn't paid attention to any other men. She knew she'd seen them, but she'd ignored them.

The only man she could think of ... who came to mind when she tried to imagine that future life ... was Bobby Dalton. She had had a picnic with him, gone bowling, spent time talking. He'd said she was pretty.

But she knew Bobby Dalton would never be the man who filled her life with happiness and children. It was inconceivable. Or was it? She remembered him standing there, without a shirt on, by the spigot. She closed her eyes and saw the flyswatter smack his rear end ... the same rear end she had stared at in her furnace room. She felt butterflies in her stomach as she thought of what he might have tried to do, had she not confessed to him.

He might have tried to kiss her. He might have wanted to hold her hand. He might have wanted to hug her and press his body to hers. He might have wanted to ...

She couldn't visualize that. All she could visualize was Harry, with his paunch and his pale body, crawling on top of her.

It had been a rough night.

The next morning, though, everyone acted completely normal at breakfast. It was obvious to Agatha that he hadn't told Mirriam about her confession. That was good, because she'd had that rough night she was worried she'd have to find somewhere else to stay.

She was almost inordinately glad that she didn't have to face a grim hostess at breakfast. She knew she would have broken down in tears and fled.

And Bobby didn't act any differently toward her either. She was amazed at that. He didn't ignore her. He smiled at her when she first came into the kitchen. But he didn't fawn over her either. His plan of seduction had been abandoned. She felt a little relieved about that too. She had spent entirely too much time, last night, wondering what his hand might feel like in hers ... or his lips pressed against her lips.

"I'll check on your furnace when I go to town," he said, breaking her train of thought. "Unless you're planning on going to town yourself."

It occurred to Agatha that she had no plans ... of any kind. She felt a little empty because of that.

"That would be nice," she said.

She tried to read. Then she gave that up and tried to work on the puzzle. That didn't work either, so she offered to help Mirriam, but Mirriam didn't have anything for her to do.

She went for a walk, bundling up with a borrowed muffler. She found her feet following the path Bobby's car had taken, until she looked up and saw the tree house. She turned and went back the way she'd come.

She left the woods just as Bobby's car pulled up in the yard and stopped. He saw her when he got out and waited.

"They're almost done," he said. "You should be able to go back home tomorrow."

Agatha felt herself relax, as she realized she'd get to spend another night with these people who made her feel so welcome.

They ate lunch and Bobby said he was going to finish the last two rooms that afternoon. After she helped Mirriam do the dishes, she wandered upstairs to see the rooms. She watched as he painted the trim and installed covers around the light switches and outlets. His movements were so smooth and practiced. He had her help him, as he installed a new light fixture on the ceiling, asking her to hand him tools, screws, or whatever else he needed while he was up on the ladder.

When they were done, he asked her what she thought and she dutifully pronounced the rooms "nice."

"Want to see what I'm going to do in the barn?" he asked, carrying the ladder out of the room.

She followed him to the barn, where he put the ladder away, and then watched as he paced out shapes on the dirt floor, telling her where walls and doorways would be, and what each space would contain.

"It looks like a lot of work," she said.

"It will be," he admitted. "I'm not sure I can pull it off."

"You can," she said automatically.

"Thanks for your confidence in me," he said, grinning.

"Did you really think about seducing me?" she asked.

Her mouth stayed open. She hadn't meant to say that at all!

His face went so calm that she was afraid he was going to say that was a lie too.

"When I thought that might be what you wanted," he said.

"Oh," she said.

"It's kind of hard to turn off," he said. "I hope you'll forgive me if I still have the errant naughty thought about you."

The butterflies burst from their cocoons in her stomach.

"You still want to?" she asked weakly.

"Like I said, it's kind of hard to just turn off." He smiled. "But you don't have to worry about it. I'll get over it."

She stared at him. Her mind roiled with conflicting emotions. Bobby saw in her face some of the same things he'd seen before ... that he'd interpreted as interest. But she'd been acting before. He didn't think she was acting now. He thought of his sisters ... curious ... interested ... but holding back. He went to stand in front of her.

"I think I know what you're thinking about," he said softly. "I might be wrong, but right now I bet you feel nervous and tense, and all jittery inside."

"Yes," she whispered.

"It's normal," he said. "It just means you're curious. We both know I'm not the right man to be curious with, though ... don't you think?"

"I don't know what to think," she whispered.

"What you're feeling just means that you're alive," he said. "It proves I was right ... you can have excitement in your life ... and a man. You'll meet that man, if you let yourself start looking around and exploring the possibilities."

"I don't know any men," she said.

"You can meet them."

"Where? I don't have any friends anymore, and even if I did, they wouldn't help me."

"Go find a job," he suggested. "Do some volunteer work. Expand your horizons and meet people."

"Do you want to kiss me?" she asked, her voice sounding like she was only twelve or thirteen.

He looked at her for what seemed like an hour, but was really only fifteen seconds.

"Yes, but we already talked about this," he said.

"I don't know why I asked that," she moaned.

"Because you're curious," he said.

"Oh."

They stood, staring at each other for another fifteen seconds.

"Do you want me to kiss you?" he asked.

"I shouldn't," she sighed.

"You're probably right about that," he agreed.

"Then why do I feel this way?" she whined.

"Maybe it's just because now you're thinking about having a future ... with a man."

"Not you," she said. She blushed instantly. "I'm sorry."

"I understand completely," he said. "That's why I'm not sure kissing you would be the right thing."

"Why not?"

"We already talked about that too," he reminded her.

The butterflies in her stomach went wild. He was thinking about making love to her. He thought that kissing her was part of making love to her. Quite suddenly, she saw that as true. Kissing was part of moving toward that.

Bobby saw the look in her eyes clearly. Whether she knew it or not, she was horny. He'd seen that look in a number of feminine eyes.

"If I kiss you right now ... it won't help," he said softly.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because we'll both want more," he said.

"No we won't," she said, knowing she was lying. She already wanted more and that just blew her mind, because she had never wanted more before.

"Let's go for a walk," he said. "If you still feel like it in ten minutes ..." He didn't finish.

She didn't like that idea, because she was quite sure that she'd change her mind once she started thinking clearly. She didn't want to change her mind. Right now she wasn't particularly fond of the idea of thinking clearly, even. But he was moving away from her, so she followed.

Whether he thought about it or not, she didn't know, but they ended up retracing her earlier steps. It took them about ten minutes to get to the tree house. She fought with herself the entire way, telling herself this urge to kiss him was crazy ... insane ... stupid. But when they stopped, she knew she still wanted to try it. He was right. She was curious. She'd tried to remember kisses from her past. There had been a few in high school, but she couldn't remember them at all. She vividly remembered kissing a neighbor boy when she was six or seven. It had been her first kiss, but she knew it was nothing like a real kiss. She remembered kissing Harry too, most of which were quick pecks, a short pressing of lips together that had seemed more like a ritual than anything that conveyed feeling. Even in bed, he hadn't kissed her in any other way. He'd been happy in bed. His grunts and groans had made that clear. But it hadn't involved a lot of kissing.

He was standing there, watching her. She looked at him.

"I think you're right. I'm just curious," she said. "And it's just a kiss. If I do what you suggested ... if I meet a man ... I'll kiss him ... won't I?" This was a strange, new Agatha speaking, she thought.

"I imagine so," he said, smiling.

"Then call it practice," she said.

Bobby's eyebrows arched. It was almost eerie how she used the same words that some of his sisters had used ... "It's just practice."

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