The Lies You Tell the Others
(and the lies you tell yourself)
2 - Bad Boys
"Oh, I could never do what she's doing."
"What do you mean?" Rory, her dancing partner of the moment and fully 15 years her junior, asked idly to this somewhat out-of-the-blue comment.
"She's gonna suck his cock, isn't she?" Michelle elaborated.
"Who? My Juno? I very much doubt that."
"No. The plumber's wife," she clarified. A nod of her head indicated the pair dancing at the farthest corner of the parquet floor from them. That man was tall, and he moved gracefully to the music. The other woman wore a slinky dress that showed off her upper assets while at the same time showing off her moderately heavy thighs. Her style of dancing at the moment involved a series of awkward semi-crouches, and since the man was half a foot taller, her face at times was nearly level with his waistband. The light in the bistro was not bright but she could see the woman was pantomiming something not quite specific but certainly suggestive.
"Something wrong with being a plumber?" Rory had picked up something from her tone.
"No, no. I don't mean that." She took her arm off his shoulder for long enough to push her bookish round-lensed glasses back up the bridge of her nose.
"Or being married to one, maybe."
"No. I just can't remember her name. Zelda? Dildo?"
"Dennis's wife? She's Zoey. So you're saying she's going to gobble your boyfriend?"
Michelle found his British isle inflection charming. "If that means blow job, then yes."
"If she's willing, then good for him. I wouldn't say no if I had the same offer."
"Oh, you're bad," she said, and gave him a little swat on the shoulder. "He's got his finger in her mouth." She was somewhat guessing, but such a guess was from long experience. "Alben's my husband, by the way. Not 'boyfriend.' I know what he likes, Rory. What his weaknesses are."
"Weaknesses? You mean for girls who say yes? Lot of us have the same weakness." She swatted him again.
Across the small ballroom, Zoey had dropped abruptly to her knees now, maintaining some remnant of rhythmic movement to the music. Michelle was fixated. "See? Oh, she's gonna suck his cock, Rory. She's going to suck his goddamn cock."
"Well, surely not here."
"No, silly. The cruise line has rules against that. Don't they? They'd put her in cruise ship jail, ha ha." The obviously inebriated other woman had already gotten back to her feet, and the man steadied her in his arms then gave her a big kiss that lasted for seconds.
"They do have those, you know. I don't suppose they'd put a paying customer in the brig for something so minor, though. So what's the actual problem? A little harmless flirting. You're not against that, yourself, I'm sure." He lowered his hand to rest it on her skinny left buttock as they danced close together, and she didn't resist.
"What they're doing isn't what I call flirting. She already kissed him."
"A little snogging doesn't mean anything, does it?"
"Snogging. That's what you call kissing? Makes it sound nasty?"
"Not really. Snogging's a little sexy, maybe. Wouldn't say it when I give my mum a kiss. But it's nothing serious. Certainly not nasty." He lowered his face to hers, but she rebuffed him.
"Well it *is* nasty, the way she's doing it. I'm going over and let her know I see exactly what she's doing. Otherwise she'll lure him up to our suite, and one thing will lead to another."
Rory chuckled. "Easy solution to that problem. I'll go up there to the suite with you. Keep an eye on them together. Or, maybe, have a little fun ourselves?"
"Oh, you're bad," she repeated.
"If I'm bad then we're all bad. Your boyfriend, I mean your husband, he's got a bit of the bad boy in him."
"He does not!" she stated emphatically, offering no specific rebuttal. "He's not a bad boy. It's her being the bad one. She definitely plans to suck his cock. I'm just surprised she's being so obvious, that's all."
"Surprised? Now, what would be surprising is if my Juno would ever offer that particular service. Or consent to it, even. She simply won't. I think she was keen on your bloke at first, but maybe he dropped a hint, and now she's with Dennis. But you're not like her, are you?" He took his hand off of her backside and brought his index finger to her lips, similar to what her husband had done with Zoey, but she turned her head away in gentle refusal.
"With someone I never met? I wouldn't do that unless he told me I had to," she insisted.
"He? Ah! We're getting somewhere. Your boyf-, erm, husband implied that was part of the fun for you. Someone you never met."
"Well, you're wrong."
The quiet song turned up-tempo and louder, and the two put aside the conversation momentarily and danced close together. The advice which her grandmother had given her long ago, to dance close enough to a man so that he knew she was a woman, but far enough apart so that he knew she was a lady, had never been particularly applicable to the nearly flat-chested Michelle. She knew Rory wouldn't feel much contact with her breasts even though she was pressed to him. And she didn't resist letting him press his crotch tightly against hers, as his way of letting her know he was sporting a full erection by now.
As the song drew to its finale, the band turned down the heat and the singer began the final slow refrain. Rory turned his head toward hers and kissed her, square upon the mouth. He managed to maintain this contact for only a moment.
"Bad boy," she admonished yet again, and set herself a millimeter farther from his torso than before.
"You keep saying that." His boyish, nearly beardless face certainly did not convey a sense of menace. "I'm no bad boy. I never go behind Juno's back on anything. I think that's key, don't you?"
She ignored the possible double entendre of going behind someone's back. "You remind me of my ex," she said.
"He's a subject of the Queen, too?" he said drolly.
"No. He was always trying to steal kisses from the girls, just like you. He had a black heart. Just like you."
"No, no, no. My heart is pure. I'm only looking for a good time tonight. A little variety. Same as you. Same as your boyfriend. Same as everybody."
"My *husband*," she corrected again. "And *she* thinks she's God's gift to men."
"So we're back to Zoey."
"Who else? With those boobs practically hanging out, and all. Very entitled."
Rory pulled forward at the top of Michelle tube dress. "You're obsessed. You're not dressed all that differently, yourself."
"Stop that," she squealed, but did nothing to impede him. "You're embarrassing me."
He ogled her A-cup tits with the tiny erect brown nipples for a moment more, then let go. "You love it." Then he kissed her, full on, and this time she did not turn away or try to stop him. They swayed to the music, lips locked, until at last her body language said she'd had enough, and he let go.
"I love you," she cooed.
"What?" he said, a bit taken aback. "Erm, I love you too, Michelle. You're so pretty. You should take off your glasses when you go out for a night of dancing."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry. That just slipped out. When I kiss. There, you see? You *are* a bad boy. You bring out the worst in me."
"Good."
"Don't get your hopes up. Or anything else. Oh, and I have to wear my glasses, to dance or anything, otherwise I'm blind as a bat."
"Anything? Surely not in bed."
"Practically anything."
"I'll be your service animal, heh."
"I thought I was the one supposed to be servicing you. No, just kidding. So, what do you think I should do about her?"
"Fight fire with fire. She makes a play for your bad boy? You make a play for me."
"I'm not doing any such thing. Because Alben's not a bad boy. No. He only does this to embarrass me. Now my ex, *he* was a bad boy. Took me a long time to figure that out." The band had begun another slow, boozy blues number, and Michelle set a sensuous cadence to match, which Rory obligingly followed as before.
"Sounds like you're not over your ex. You keep bringing him up. So maybe you're drawn to the bad boys, whether you realize it or not."
"Alben's not a bad boy," she insisted. "Not like you."
He eased off. "Maybe bad boy isn't the right word. He's pretty commanding."
