A Strange Arrangement

I stopped by a few places in town and tried to check on my job possibilities. I was hopeful about one place that actually seemed to have looked at and processed my application. They said they'd be calling people for interviews in a few days. I had heard that before and got nothing, but this one sounded a little less...dismissive.

After picking up my prescription (and saving the receipt so Andrew would reimburse me), I headed to the house. Because I had worked all weekend, I had a full afternoon of cleaning and cooking ahead of me. Trying a new recipe I had seen in the magazine suddenly seemed a lot less exciting than it did before my conversation at the hair salon.

While I cleaned and cooked, I debated with Andrew in my head. He

had

to agree to a weekly maximum, and maybe even a daily max. More and more this was feeling like something that needed a multi-page contract defining terms.

What constitutes a day? A week? Does a day begin at midnight, dawn, or when one or both of us wakes up?

Lots of similar questions came to mind. I tried to imagine a lawyer drawing up the papers:

"And so we agree that oral sex to completion constitutes a qualifying sexual act unless more than half of the qualifying sexual acts in the past 7 day period have been of an oral nature. Now, according to section 4, clause 3..."

I actually laughed at that thought while I was stirring something on the stove, and I was still laughing when Andrew walked in the door.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing that concerns you," I said, souring.

"I just don't see you laugh much. You have such a pretty smile," he said, taking off his shoes. I had convinced him that dirty shoes in the house just means more work for me and a shorter lifespan for his carpet, so he had gotten into the habit of taking them off when he got home,

"I smile plenty, just not a lot around here." The realization that I was in the kitchen, wearing an apron, having casual conversation with a man just home from work made me embarrassed and a little angry. I

was

his pseudo-wife! How sick! "What are you doing home, anyway? You went in late today, right?"

"Slow day. When business is slow and I have enough guys on the schedule, I'll sometimes leave."

"You can do that?"

"Well, I own the place, so yeah, I can do that."

"I didn't know you owned it," I mumbled. That seemed odd. If he owned his own business, one that was doing reasonably well, why was he working a second job?

Well, no sense in giving him another chance to bed me today. "I have a date tonight. I'll be leaving as soon as I finish cooking." Total lie. And total curveball. He seemed a little stunned and visibly unhappy. But I didn't know if he was unhappy that I had a date or that I wouldn't be having sex with him this evening. But he recovered quickly.

"OK. What's on the menu?"

"Curry chicken and potatoes with rice," I said blankly. Damn, I had really wanted to try this, too, but if I had to pretend to be going on a date, it would look funny if I ate dinner first.

"Smells amazing. I love curry," he said, moving towards me and breathing in deep over the pot. "I'm going to go change."

"Whatever. I'll probably be gone when you get back down," I warned. As soon as he was in his room, I bolted upstairs, changed into something plausible, grabbed my computer and ran back downstairs. I took the pot off the stove, put it on the table, scooped some into a bowl to take with me, and headed to my car. I drove a few blocks away to a coffee shop, scarfed down my food in the parking lot, and headed inside to putz around for a few hours.

*******

I should have driven farther away.

"Are you the girl that's living with Andrew now?"

"What?" I was halfway through a hot chocolate and was engrossed in an article on urban renewal when a friendly voice interrupted me.

She was, in a word, perky. Shorter than me, blonde- the cheerleader type, but minus the snooty demeanor. She was clearing tables and had on a tell-tale apron.

"I saw you in here with him last week or so."

Right...

my car had been in his shop for a night, and he drove me to and from work. We had stopped for breakfast on the way in. It didn't even occur to me that we were close enough to the house that people would recognize one of us.

"My cousin lives down the road from him, he said someone had moved in a while back- a cute girl. I can't say mine wasn't one of the hearts that sank with that news." Cheerful, playful, attractive. Casually talking while she walked around. The shop wasn't crowded, so she wasn't bothering anyone with her chatter.

"No, it's not...I...we're not...I'm just renting a room from him. We're not...a couple."

Now I had her attention. She set her bin down on a table, pulled up a chair and looked at me with a beaming face. "What's with the ring?" She whispered loudly, as if we were starting some conspiracy. I self-consciously glanced at my empty fingers.

"Ring?"

"Yeah, the wedding ring. Is he divorced? Did she die? Is it fake?"

"I...I don't know. We don't talk much. He's just my landlord who lives down the hall. There is...or was...a wife, but he won't say anything about her."

"No one has

ever

seen or heard of a wife, and so he seems...available."

"I couldn't say."

"Does he ever have girls over?"

"Not that I've noticed, but I don't keep tabs on him."

"So, is he secretly gross or something?"

"I...I don't

think

so. But I don't really know him...?"

"You've lived there a month and don't know him?"

"Like I said, we don't really talk much. He's busy, I'm busy, we're not friends or anything. It's just business- I rent a room." Just business. Right.

"

Well

. We've all got theories on him. Tabby thinks his wife disappeared and he wears the ring, hoping she'll be found. Diane thinks she left him and he wears the ring in case she ever comes back.

I

think it's fake. He wears it to keep away skanks and gold-diggers, but once he finds the right girl, he stops pretending."

"Wow. I think you all've thought entirely too much about him," I said, a little freaked out by their obsession with Andrew.

"Oh, girl, it's not like that. Just idle chatter to pass the time, and he is so sweet and cute enough to get us talking."

That made sense, but I doubted it was entirely the case. "Does he come here a lot?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"No, he's not one of our daily regulars. But he'll stop by once a week or so. And his name's on his credit card and his jumpsuit, so..."

"Ah, yes. Of course."

"I'm Angelica," she said, reaching out her hand as she stood to get back to work. I shook it lightly and said simply, "Gina."

Walking away with her bin of dirty mugs, she said, "Well, I'm sure I'll be seeing you around, Gina. And in the future, I could probably get you free refills in exchange for any juicy secrets about our man down the road." Creepy.

"Oh! Wait, Angelica?" She stopped and looked back at me. Something important had just occurred to me. If Andrew found out I'd been

here

all evening instead of on a date...I smiled sweetly at her, "I might be a better informant if Andrew doesn't know that I come here."

She narrowed her eyes quizzically and thought for a second. "Ohhh, right!" Her eyes sparkled and she made a lip-zipping motion with her fingers as she turned away.

And that opened up a whole new world of worry for me. I just took anonymity for granted- no one around here knew who I was, neither of us was talking about...us- it seemed easy. But people see things, people talk, and in the absence of facts, people fill in the gaps with stories. I doubted any story they made up would come close to my reality, but it just made me nervous. How long could I pull this off? I didn't want to be at the house and now I didn't feel like I could go out.

And what's worse, I couldn't even get away for an evening without it turning into something about Andrew. My whole identity was shifting to be centered around my relationship to

him

. It happened at the hair place, it happened at the coffee shop. I couldn't just be Gina anymore. I had to be Gina, the girl who lives with Andrew.

I was realizing that I was giving up a lot more than I had expected in order to make this work. I had thought it could be simple, I had thought exchanging a few fucks a week for shelter, food, and gas would be straightforward, but now I was seeing that there was a lot more on the line. I felt disoriented, lost, and sick.

*******

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. Despite our schedules being a little less conflicted, Andrew only bothered me for sex just once more (maybe our Sunday night/Monday morning double header had satisfied him for a spell). I didn't intentionally avoid him much, but neither did he chase me down. I think he was trying to give me some space or something.

But then he started getting antsy, easily agitated. He was perpetually unhappy. Maybe work was stressful, maybe it was something else. I figured maybe he just needed to get laid. Part of me wanted to reach out to him and suggest just that, if only to bring the mood up a little in the house. But he could demand a fuck whenever he wanted, so why should I bother?

I didn't want him to think I cared, but by the end of the week his moping and snapping and overall pissy-ness was getting annoying. So on Saturday morning, when we both sat down to a late breakfast, I commented, "You've sure been cheerful lately."

He seemed a little startled and looked up from his bowl of yogurt and granola. "I'm...sorry?"

"It's nothing to me, I'm just sayin'. Usually

I

'm the sourest face in the house, but lately you've made me look downright chipper."

"Well, I'm not exactly a bucket of sunshine, usually. Having you around has lifted my spirits, but I...well, I'm just on a bit of a down swing right now. Reality is a clingy bitch, " At least I thought that's what the last sentence was. It was hard to tell when he spoke with a mouthful of yogurt and strawberries. He might have said, "We all need a stringy witch."

"I don't know what you have to complain about. You've got good money coming in, a stable living situation, and a sex slave housekeeper."

He dropped his spoon in his bowl and gave me an angry look. We had talked about this several times- the questionable nature of our arrangement and how I couldn't deny my own choices in entering this relationship (and my own freedom in leaving the arrangement whenever I wanted).

I arched my eyebrows and gave him a sassy look. I even stuck out my tongue, like a little sister teasing her brother. He relaxed and resumed eating. I think he even smirked.

I got up to clear the dishes and asked, "So are your plans for today to mope through breakfast, brood until lunch, and then nurture an ironic angst until you leave for work?"

"Keep running your mouth like that and I'll be forced to put something in it," he dead-panned. That was

not

the kind of humor I was used to from him. This was more like someone I could joke with. He headed into the living room and began flipping through the DVD drawer.

I tilted my head and used a saccharine-sweet voice to taunt, "Aww, Andrew. Nobody's

forcing

you to do anything!"

He caught my meaning, straightened up and turned towards me, saying, "See, now you're just asking for it."

"Such a charmer! Do you sweet talk all the ladies like that?"

"Alright, that's it." He sat back on the couch and shucked his sweatpants. "Get that mouth over here and put it to some good use." OK, so by itself that statement sounds horrible, but in the context of our banter, it was just silly. And since Andrew was not the kind of guy to seriously talk like that, I didn't feel threatened. I was actually...enjoying this.

"Oh, Andy, you know I could never refuse you," I said sweetly, and then added in a deeper and more serious voice, "literally."

By the time I got to the couch, he was pumping his cock to get it fully erect. I knelt down on the floor in front of him and started licking his tip. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands- caressing my hair, running the backs of his fingers along my cheeks, rubbing my shoulders...

I regretted not waiting until after his shower to push him this far, but everything had happened so naturally.

I took his whole tip in my mouth and teased the tip with my tongue. Sucking just the tip, I gripped his shaft with my right hand and put my left hand on his hip. I was in no hurry- I think I was just bored and this was a way to pass the time. I dipped his tip in and out of my mouth, slowly rubbing it between my lips.

He kept resting his hand on the back of my head and would start to apply a little pressure to push me down, but then he would pull back and move his hands away. I could see him hold his hands up in the air and ball them into fists as he took deep breaths. I enjoyed knowing that I was torturing him.

Without warning or build-up, I slipped two-thirds of his tool into my mouth- as much as I could get without feeling the need to gag. He gasped and whispered, "Damn!...Whoah!...O God, Gina!"

I started a very slow motion, bobbing up and down, gripping his base with my hand and running the backs of my fingers around his thigh and ass cheek. With every downward motion, he took in air with a sharp gasp. One of his hands made it back to my head, lacing in my hair and resting there. He wasn't pushing me down, but his hand resting there was a reminder that he

could

do so.

After what must have been two or three minutes of going as slowly as I could, I started speeding up, breathing out through my nose on the down strokes and sucking as hard as I could on the upstrokes. Andrew stomped his foot on the floor and lifted his hips a slight bit. By now, both of his hands were laced through my hair. Had he even noticed my haircut?

Shut up Gina! Why do you even care?

My mind was brought back to the task at hand by Andrew's nervous voice, "Gina?...Ohhh, yesss...Gina? Should I...oohhh...I'm close Gina!" I started moving my fist in time with my mouth- not speeding up but pressing harder, tighter.

I wasn't going to swallow, and I wasn't going to do any porno move like spraying him on my face or chest (I still had my shirt on, anyway). There wasn't anything in easy reach unless I...

"Gina! NNNGH!" That ended that debate. I pushed down with my hand and let him empty his frustration into my mouth. After a few seconds of groaning and pulsing, he was done. I managed to avoid gagging, and as soon as I was sure I could pull my mouth away without getting a surprise deposit on my shirt, I lunged to the side and grabbed his sweatpants. Holding them close to my face, I spit into his pants, wiped my mouth, balled up the sweats and tossed them in the direction of the laundry room. "I need to wash your clothes today, anyway," I said casually.

*******

A minute or two later, Andrew was still dazed, lying back on the couch with a lop-sided grin plastered on his face. I was downing a glass of grape juice and surveying the contents of the fridge so I could plan my next online recipe search.

"Gina?"

"Andy?" I said in an exaggeratedly sweet voice. I was liking this sarcastic sweetness.

"Can I do that for

you

?"

I lost the flirty voice and reverted to business voice. "That's not what you owe me in this arrangement, Andrew. You just keep paying the bills and I'll do my part."

"No, that's not what I mean." He sat up and turned towards me. "I

want

to do that. I

like

it. You want to 'do your part?' Come over here, take off your pants, and let me eat you out."

I slumped my shoulder and started trudging towards the couch, and in a whiny teenager voice, I asked, "Can I get my computer and multitask, since you only need me below the waist?" I was half-serious. I wasn't optimistic about getting anything out of this.

"Gina..."

"Put a movie on?"

"No, but gimme a second..." He pushed a few buttons on the remotes, slipped a disc in the system, and beckoned me over to the couch. As I slipped my pajama pants off, a simple melody began. I think it was some sort of classical guitar group. It was nice- soothing, melodic, sensuous. Alright, I could close my eyes and listen for a bit.

I lay down on the couch, put my hands on my stomach and interlaced my fingers. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. Andrew had to adjust a few times to get a good angle, but he eventually settled into a position where he stretched across my abdomen. With his nose closer to the couch and his chin near my clit, he had a good angle for reaching his hands around me and holding my ass. I chuckled a little when I noticed that both of us still had on our shirts yet were totally naked from the waist down.

I tried to ignore his licking and touching and instead just relax and listen to the music. I wasn't entirely successful, but I did manage to get deep into the sounds. The guitars were so gentle, so earthy. The melody communicated such desire and longing, evoking images of lovers long-parted, reaching across time and space to meet again. I pictured the musicians- all handsome men, dark and Mediterranean, young, and fervent. Their fingers moved across the strings, stroking and pushing, rubbing and caressing, touching and soothing, drawing out latent longings.

I was surprised to hear myself emit a loud and breathy moan as I shuddered. I wasn't conscious of when my hands had started moving. I was gradually aware that I had one hand on Andrew's head, gently pushing him towards the heat of my aching pussy. His stubble scratching my clit was stimulating, though not erotic. My other hand had found its way up the back of his shirt and was rubbing the skin of his shoulder blades. I decided to let myself enjoy this, and I remembered the last time we were on this couch together. I couldn't blame the alcohol this time, but I'm sure I could find sufficient rationalizations later.

Andrew, meanwhile, was working hard to get a reaction out of me. One of his hands slid off my ass cheek and curled up between my legs. First one finger, then two, began gentle probings of my entrance. Andrew pulled his head up enough so that his tongue was covering my clit. His fingers started a very slow, rhythmic motion in and out while his tongue moved impossibly slowly and firmly across my clit. I cried out in longing and lifted my hips, trying to get more attention for the hardened nub that was the center of my need at the moment.

Andrew maintained his languid pace, probably paying me back for my own technique earlier. But just like my method heightened his enjoyment in the end, I could feel my own tension building to something I might really appreciate.

The slow song ended and a faster, more vibrant number began. Andrew took that as his cue to speed up, both with his fingers and his tongue. But it wasn't enough. I didn't think he was going to get me there that way, though not for lack of trying. And I was to the point where I was

not

going to leave unsatisfied. This began as something for him, but now I was going to get mine.

I closed my fingers in his hair and gently pulled his head up. I said breathily, "Do the pillow thing."

Without turning his head to face me, he asked, "The what?"

"The pillow thing you did when we were on the couch once. You put it under my ass and..."

"You want me inside you?" he asked, a little breathless and a little incredulous.

"Is that a problem?" I gasped, not believing that we were still discussing this.

In three seconds I had my answer. He was buried inside me and was picking a throw pillow up from the floor to put under me. The different angle helped and the pillow meant that I didn't have to keep pulling my hips back. But what really made "the pillow thing" work was when he adjusted himself forward until my face was in his chest. The new position aligned his pubic bone with my clit so that he didn't even need to thrust. All we had to do was hold that position and grind our crotches together.