Pickens escorted Tiegan into the hallway. It was blustery outside, and both were happy to be home.
"I am pleased the De Kooning exhibit is still in town." Pickens said to his former sister-in-law. "I worried you wouldn't come in time to see it."
Tiegan smiled at Pickens. She loved the way he was so old world, helping her off with her coat. Tiegan sat down and unbidden, Pickens brought her a gin and tonic.
If it had been before three p.m. he would have offered to brew a cup of tea. Mother had taught him that.
"So have you been dating much?" Tiegan asked, smiling slightly at Pickens. At forty-six, Pickens was still an attractive man, silver wings in his hair.
Tiegan had quite approved when he'd married her older sister. She worried about Pickens now, being alone.
When Bekah had been on her deathbed, she'd implored Tiegan with her last brew breaths to look after her husband.
"He needs that peculiar thing, you know, Tiegan?"
And, although Tiegan was a good twelve years younger than Pickens and Bekah, she understood.
Tiegan had dressed this morning in a white cashmere sweater that snugly cupped her generous breasts, and a tasteful but short tweed miniskirt.
Pickens of course was much too shy to comment on his late wife's sister's attire, but he did appreciate a cute girl!
Pickens wasn't sure how to respond to Tiegan's question in regards to dating, or whether it was appropriate to discuss it at all. He was a widower, and dealing with this matter had led him on a bear of a journey.
For a time, earlier this year, Pickens had been seeing a rather cheap, blowsy woman that he'd met on a site called "Harriett's Leather Life".
Goyamina had teased hair, often styled in the fashion known as the beehive, high on her head.
Although Goyamina was easily a year or two older than Pickens, she had dressed like a teenybopper, with low cut dresses, leather skirts and skintight jeans.
Sometimes Goyamina had shown up for dinner in cut-off denim shorts, the sort vulgarly referred to as "Daisy Dukes" after the heroine of the bucolic TV series of the 1980s.
She often wore these shorts with fishnet stockings and high heels, and Pickens worried that he might be arrested, being mistaken by the constabulary as her pimp instead of her boyfriend.
And, as ashamed of it as Pickens was, he was very aroused by Goyamina, and would watch her breathlessly, simultaneously excited and horrified as she calmly coated her saucy smile with bright violet lip plumper.
She did it right there at the table, instead of in the loo, like more well bred ladies!
Goyamina and Pickens had little in common-she would be far more comfortable in a bowling alley than a symphony or a Broadway show.
But, Goyamina enjoyed Pickens's generosity, and loved telling the girls at her styling salon that she was dating a radiologist.
And, what they did have in common, of course was her reaction to Pickens's advertisement on the "Harriett's Leather Life" message board--"Widowed male, mid forties, ISO dominant female who will take me over her knee to correct my many errors."
But the problem had been, although the couple had bonded so smashingly in this department, when Pickens had decided it was time to terminate the relationship, there had been a distressing snag.
He'd known he had to end it. Goyamina borrowed too much money, had a drug problem, and often embarrassed him at parties and public events with her drunken tantrums.
Once, incredibly, at a fundraiser, after Goyamina had seen him in polite conversation with an attractive Washington lobbyist, she'd strutted over to them.
"Get out of here." Goyamina had said harshly to the little blonde. Already Pickens was regretting that he'd invited her, she was wearing a shimmery metallic mini-gown..
"Pull your belt out of your pants, Pickens." Goyamina had said, eyes drilling daggers in him.
"Wh-why, you're embarrassing me--"
But his objection had been truncated when her fat hand, fingers carrying heavy metal rings had crashed across his face.
And, on that difficult evening, in front of everyone, Pickens had removed his belt and handed it to her, and then he'd watched numbly as she'd unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis, running her glittery nails up and down the shaft until he was very stiff...
Poking out of his tux pants like a Louisville Slugger!
And then, Goyamina had looped the belt and slapped it onto his dick five or six times, and how Pickens had screamed!
"You'll learn (WHACK) not to (WHACK) flirt with little whores!"