Chapter 9: A Tall Order
My BMW was in the shade. I turned the keys one click backwards to shut off the radio and avoid draining the car battery. That had always been one of my dad's concerns, a dead battery. Although looking back I suspect he was just annoyed by his son's music and wanted to cut it short. I took a sip of coffee only to spit it back in the Coffee Bean cup. It had gone cold during the time I was there. I'd give her one more minute to show up and then I'd leave. In reality I'd only been parked there for roughly ten minutes but I was feeling anxious, and the more I thought about what my wife had done the past weekend and her telling me, "
What are you going to do about it
," the more anxious I became.
We hadn't discussed our unusual sexual experience apart from me blurting out a few jokes that evening. The morning after we'd cuddled for hours and I'd been unable to keep my hands off her. I'd finally apologized for being so handsy but then blamed her for being so hot the day before. She'd drilled her finger into my chest and teased, "You mean having your own personal porno show?" She'd then thinned her eyes, studying me like a cop. She'd completely omitted anything to do with Kaden, and I figured that was intentional and left it at that.
I wanted nothing more than to initiate our sexual game again but over the next couple of days her face burned red in embarrassment whenever I'd touched her. I knew we had to talk, the tension was getting crazy, I'd been unable to think about anything but her while away at work, and then she'd practically avoided me while I'd been home. The longer I'd let it go the stranger her behavior had seemed. I kept going back to the night she shouted down Kaden in Lucy's bar, and marveling how every guy in the room took a step back. That's who I'd known her to be, but after that last weekend at Kaden's my image of her had several puzzle shaped holes in it. And so,
what was I going to do about it?
I checked my phone to see it was 12:30.
Finally Camille's Prius pulled into a spot beside the Italian restaurant. She loves her patios and I had a clear view of her at a small wrought iron table. She ordered a glass of wine, set up her laptop and waited. She pulled a small mirror from her bag, adjusted the pink ribbon around her ponytail, and touched up her lipstick.
She'd worn a wine colored sheath dress, with a low neckline that could've passed for evening wear. It also ended above her knees, and the skin of her legs, the skin above her breasts, her neck, face, arms, her skin all over had a glow from running over an hour that morning. She'd applied eyeliner and a light stroke of shadow, and penciled in her lips with a wine shade to match her dress. Something about those colors and her pulled back hair made me think of a wild school teacher.
Graham showed as she finished a glass of Pinot Noir. Unsurprisingly he was dressed the same as last time. They sat side by side looking at her laptop as she went through the edits. A second glass of wine was consumed. Food showed up, and the plates were set to either side of them so they could maintain focus on the laptop. They ate slowly as they worked, the Pinot Noir disappearing much faster than the food.
I had to wonder why Marty wasn't there. It was his writing they were editing, you think he'd want to have a say in it.
I zoomed in on Camille's lips curling into a smile as Graham made her laugh again. I was parked close, sitting in the back seat with the tinted windows up for cover. A few strands of her dark chestnut hair came free of the pink ribbon and hung over the side of her face and a gentle breeze passed through the open patio and made them flutter. It spoke to how buzzed two glasses had left her.
Camille stepped away for a minute to use the ladies room. Graham rose with her like a gentleman. Her sheath dress was snug, not a single seam down the back side, and while the smooth wine colored fabric didn't pinch into her butt there was a depression following her butt crack that accentuated their movement as she walked inside.
The half eaten plates were cleared while she was away and another glass of wine showed up. Camille returned, and Graham, also standing, placed a hand on her low back to seat her. She saw the wine and protested, and Graham squinted at her, his eyes like a cowboy's, and he raised a finger, signaling just one more.
His hand went to the upper part of her back, where the dress dipped down so he was touching her smooth skin. A finger on his opposite hand pointed to the laptop screen as he scanned a section of interest.
She read it out loud and then clicked on the keypad to make an edit. More hair had tumbled out of her ribbon, partially concealing her left eye, and Graham, staring at the side of her face, slid a finger across her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. His other hand never left her back, and in fact moved higher up, so his fingers came over the top and down to rest on the ridge of her collar bone.
Camille took a sip of her wine, and not a small one. Graham brought his glass up and toasted her, enticing her to sip again. She was now close to finishing her third glass. The wild strands of hair had returned to her face, and so she undid her bow, shook out her ponytail, and collected all her hair together as she leaned forward and exposed her toned back to him. Without her asking, Graham cinched his hand around her pony so she could use both hands to tie off the ribbon neatly. I'd assisted her in that procedure a thousand times, and every time I marveled at the magnificence of her long neck and slender shoulders the way Graham was doing.
The check came, and things wrapped up quickly from there. Camille was clearly flustered and off her game, almost knocking over her water glass. She hardly seemed the same woman.
They left the restaurant and stood at the curb for a while. He seemed to maintain his hand on her shoulder, in a protective, guiding way, while he motioned with his thumb towards the south side of the parking lot. I'm sure he was trying to offer her a ride home. For the first time that day my pains of jealousy felt more like the early stages of heartbreak, because if she got into his car, I think he would've been emboldened to take it further, and my wife was not in a great head space to resist. I even thought about coming out of hiding to stop it. But then she took out her phone and ordered an Uber, which Graham couldn't protest to.
They stood there another few minutes, laughing, with Camille pushing against his chest like she does when I tease her, or more specifically when I tease her about something a little naughty. When the car arrived he gave her a hug, one big hand set at the nape of her neck, and the other at the arch in her low back—tits to chest, crotch to crotch.
I drove to my studio and printed out several of the day's pictures. I was terrified of Penelope and Javier walking by and seeing the printer spit out the dirt I had on my wife. I then went to Michael's, bought some Foamcore boards and tape, and then in the alley behind the big craft store I taped the pictures in chronological order until I had two forty-by-sixty-inch boards filled up with evenly spaced prints.
Camille worked from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, half of that Thursday was spent meeting with Graham and the rest at home in her office space, although she'd had three glasses of wine, so not sure how much work was being accomplished. Nevertheless, I stayed at work until six-thirty, my normal time home, drinking a beer and watching an Angel's game at a pub two blocks away from our house.
When I walked in I heard her in the bath, and so I quickly brought in the Foamcore boards and slid them behind our dresser. Eventually she came into the bedroom, damp and with a towel wrapped around her waist. I walked up behind her and cupped her breasts. I'd noticed the bong on our coffee table on my way in and could now see a slight glaze over her eyes. Pot tended to make her horny, so that was good. She leaned back into me, and I kissed her neck. "A late bath? Rough day?"
"Actually no, it was a pretty good day."
As she pulled away from me she mentioned her lunch with Graham and said they worked out some of his final concerns. He'd once doubled as a punching bag for Mark Wahlberg, and the leading actress on the film and, a married mother of one and whose name Camille withheld even from me, could lose her family if identified in the book. There were two other married woman, not quite as well known, for whom fucking Graham wouldn't just be embarrassing but likely end their marriages as well.
"If he was so concerned why fuck married women at all?"
"He feels really bad about it now."
I thought about him caressing her cheek that afternoon as he swiped the hair away from her face. Graham was one leopard clearly looking to add spots, not change them.
"We agreed the three married actresses were special cases," she went on, as she moved to the dresser and pulled open a drawer. "So we snipped away at their breadcrumbs and I'm going to sneak the edited version through."
I walked to the side of the dresser. "Funny you should mention breadcrumbs."
I pulled the two Foamcore boards out and laid them on the bed. She looked at me like I was crazy. The boards contained photos of key moments, the laughing and flirty looks from her, his hands all over her sexy body, their parting hug, and one image where his aging but handsome eyes were up close with her big youthful blue beauties, full of intrigue and warmth, and I could feel the sexual tension burning between them.
I pointed to the first image but she pushed my arm away from it.
"Are you serious?"
"Just the facts, ma'am."
"You spied on me again and took pictures?"
"Just the facts," I said again, trying to play a TV role and let her know it was only for fun.
"I plead the fifth," she said, finally playing along, and rested a thumb under her jaw. "But we might have to talk about
this
." She waved her other hand over the series of photos.
"That's fine." I stepped closer to her. "But first I'd like to submit
this
into evidence as well." I pulled the towel from her waist
"My towel?"
I dropped it to the floor and reached between her legs. "I'd like to present to the jury one very naughty pussy." I slipped a finger into her slit and leaned forward to kiss her. For a few seconds I lightly massaged her pussy, her day old Brazilian wax feeling slick to the touch, as our kisses deepened and her thickening breath divulged her arousal.
She moaned, but her brow furrowed at the numerous pictures. The flirting going on in them was real. I'm sure stepping outside herself and viewing it from a distance was shocking to see just how brazen it appeared. I held her face in my hands and kissed her again, wanting her to know I wasn't mad. I lifted her up by the armpits, seating her on the bed, on top of a Foamcore board. It creased with a pop as her weight landed on it.
"Did he offer to tie you up again?"
She laughed dismissively. "He actually apologized. He said he didn't mean to be so forthright but every time he'd gotten the wrong idea about a woman it turned out she was just playing hard to get."
I chuckled. "Man, to have that kind of confidence. I guess that's what it takes to sleep around with famous women. Do any stories in the book go into it? I mean, tying up women?"
"Several, actually."
I put a knee on the bed between her legs. "Did you enjoy those?"
She looked at me with a knowing smile, and impishly thinned her eyes, "I did."
"When you read it, did you imagine it was you being tied up?"
