Cocktail Time with Shirley
When he got back to his bedroom, he found that Shirley was sitting in one of the chairs, still naked. She had placed the other chair in front of hers and gestured to Will to sit there. He legs apart; he had a wonderful view of her pussy. He could see that she was expecting comment, so he said, 'nice view'.
'You like my pussy?' she asked.
'Of course.'
'Because it's a pussy?'
He laughed and said, 'no, because it's very hairy.'
'Most men these days preferred shaved, I think, like Marietta's.'
'I like shaved or very hairy.'
They relaxed into a silence, which Shirley found very comfortable. Will, however, was feeling slightly awkward. He was thinking of what Marietta had said about payment for Shirley. Was she expecting to be paid? Was he going to be expected to pay for whatever they might do next. He wanted to ask her what she wanted, but that would be too gauche.
'I wonder what you're thinking about,' she said.
He hesitated for a moment. She noticed. He said, recovering himself, 'I was wondering what we will do for the rest of the afternoon, and this evening.
She smiled and said, 'well, you don't seem keen for me to leave, and I plan to stick around for a while so, given that we are both sitting here naked, I imagine we will probably have sex again. At some point, we will get hungry, and you will offer to cook a meal for us. And we have plenty to drink. There is still half a bottle of vodka on the kitchen table, I have another bottle in my bag, and I noticed you have plenty of wine, so I think a pleasant evening of good food, lots of vodka and lots of fucking.'
'Perfect,' he said, feeling a little more comfortable.
'But, first, she said. You could pay me for the cleaning I did with Marietta. It's always good to keep business and pleasure apart.'
He went to get his wallet. He gave her the same as he had given Marietta. It was a generous amount. He handed her a roll of notes, and she put them on the bed beside her. She smiled a knowing smile. He knew how the game went.
'Now, for the pleasure,' she said.
'You mean what we all did early was not pleasure?' he joked.
'You paid me, so not entirely, but it was very pleasurable. It's good to be clear about things.'
They sat in silence for a while. Shirley got up. He watched her leave the room. He assumed she had gone to the bathroom. She returned with cigarettes and the half full vodka bottle and two tumblers. She lit a cigarette.
'Do you smoke a lot?' he asked.
'Any smoking is too much smoking, she said, matter of factly. 'About five a day, a little more when I have sex. You?'
'I used to. I quit a few years ago.'
'Are you anti-smoking?'
'It's bad for your health, stale smoke doesn't smell great, but I like watching women smoking. Then, I find smoking very erotic.'
'Smoking fetish,' she said and laughed.
'What's funny?' he asked.
'Oh, here we are, naked, talking about sexual fetishes, after an afternoon threesome. We're doing everything in the wrong order, a day or non-stop sex first and then a dinner date.'
He smiled and said, 'well. Think of it this way. If we still want to see each other and have a dinner date, it must more there is more to this than just sex.'
She gave him a long look and smiled again, 'I'm looking for a boyfriend,' she said.
He was a little taken back, but he liked her directness.
'I didn't know I was looking for a girlfriend, but now you mention it, maybe I am.'
There was a silence. It needed to be filled. 'We'll see what happens,' she said, and if anything does, I won't expect you to give up your thing with Marietta.'
'I'd not thought that far ahead,' he replied.
'Any guy who gets into a relationship with me needs to be pretty open-minded and not the jealous or possessive type. That's why I don't find it easy to meet the right guy.'
'You think I'm the right kind of guy?
'I think maybe you are. You know that if I say you won't need to give up Marietta if we were to start dating, I'll expect you to give me the same freedom. I don't date more than one man at a time, but I have other things going on. You know how the Filipinas are. Always other things going on.'
'It's ok.'
'Thanks,' she said.
He thought of what Marietta had told him about herself, and he assumed that Shirley's story would be similar. He decided to ask her only one question. The rest he would learn as they went along. And if she was doing the same things as Marietta, he would like it, as he liked knowing what Marietta did. It excited him. He would not tell her that yet.
'Can I ask one question?
'Yes,' she said, only a little tentatively.
'Are you married?'
'No,' she replied, 'I never have been. You know Marietta is, I imagine.'
'Yes, she told me'.
'Do you have a girlfriend now?'
'There was a woman I had a casual thing with but that seemed to fade away. I haven't seen her for three or four months. The only woman I have been having sex with since then is Marietta, and now you.'
'And you want to have a girlfriend now,' she said and gave him a gentle stare.
'Well, Marietta is not a girlfriend. I don't know if there is a name for what I have with her, and having that with her does not mean I can't have a girlfriend, and if the girlfriend knows about her and is fine with it, I don't have to sneak around and deceive anyone.
'I tick that box,' she said and laughed.
I know you do. That's why I said it.'
'Would it have been a problem if I was married?'
'Not a problem, but complicated. Marietta is not a relationship, so it doesn't matter if she's married. And she has an arrangement with her husband. However, a relationship with a married woman would involve complications and could get messy. There are feelings, attachments. In the kind of thing I have with Marietta, they can't exist. I once used the term 'erotic friendship' to differentiate what I do with Marietta from a relationship. She approved of the term. I got the idea from a novel by Milan Kundera.'
'Do you want to have a relationship with me?
'You want me as your boyfriend?'
'That's what I had in mind when I approached you at the party.'
'You tick my boxes: mature, Asian.'
'So, you want to give it a try?'
'Yes.'
She came over to him and kissed him.
'I'm hungry,' he said, 'you must be too. Let's make something to eat.'
They went to the kitchen and Will fried steaks and cooked potatoes while Shirley sat and watched him. He opened a bottle of red to accompany the meal.
As they ate the food they had prepared, Shirley said, 'this is the first date thing we've done.'
He laughed and said, 'yes, it is, and it feels nice to have you here. It feels good.'
'Really?' she asked, and she looked pleased.
'Yes, really. You know, to be honest, when I met you briefly at the party, I thought to myself afterwards, I'd like to get to know her more, but the moment has probably passed, and then Marietta would be a complication, and...' he trailed off.
'And...?' she asked.
'And you came with Marietta and here you are.'
'And she's gone,' said Shirley, finishing his sentence.
'I was a little surprised she left us here alone together,' said Will.
'I wasn't, she replied, 'although I didn't know she was going to. Now she has, it's because she expects something to happen between us.'
'You think?'
They finished the wine with the food. They had drunk it quickly.
'Let's open the other bottle of vodka,' she said.
She went and got the bottle from the table in the living room where she had put it earlier. When she returned, she put the bottle and two tumblers on the table and poured.
'Is there ice?' she asked.
'Yes,' he said and went to the fridge to get some from the icebox.
Shirley put ice in both drinks and lit a cigarette, exhaled and then told him,
'I like to drink. I drink too much.'
Will drank, but mostly wine and not too much, but he liked to get drunk now and then and it was clear they were going to get drunk that evening.
'We can drink slowly now, but later, more,' she said.
'How well do you know Marietta? She asked.
'Not well, I mean I don't know much about her life. She says the less we know about each other, the better things are between us; the excitement remains more intense and lasts longer. She told me she's married. I know what she likes in bed, that she has sex with guys she cleans for, when she wants to, that she occasionally meets guys purely for sex for money, that she's married and her husband knows how she lives. She says she prefers having sex with guys she cleans for rather than one off sex for money meetings.