"Is that your wife dancing with the cowboy?" the stranger asked. I nodded. "She like sex?" he asked shamelessly. I looked at him and made a face, amazed he would ask me such a question. "Well, I mean, you two share? Just wondering if you swing. You let her run free, have her head? No pun intended," he said, pleased by his own cleverness. "I mean you let her fuck who she wants, right? I see you let her dance with whoever she wants to, so you let her do the horizontal two step?" He laughed at his witticism and put his hands out to the side as if waiting for an answer.
"She is a married mother of two. She is not interested in fucking arrogant assholes who don't know what's beyond the pale," I said, hoping to put him in his place.
"You don't let her decide? You make that decision for her?" he asked. "You think for your wife?"
"No, I don't make her decisions for her. If she wants sex with someone else, that's fine. She'll decide. She just doesn't choose to," I said.
"Well, okay. So you're saying I can ask her, and she can decide to sleep with me if she wants? Right?"
"Yeah, right. But don't put yourself out. She won't," I said.
"Don't be too sure," he said with a unpleasant and mocking smile. "You may be surprised. You wouldn't mind then if I talk to her, right? See if she has any interest?"
"Sure," I said sarcastically, disgusted by him, certain she would toss him on his ear.
"So, after she dances with Tex, I can charm your wife a little and take whatever I can get?"
"Yeah, give it the old college try, but don't say I didn't warn you," I said with distain.
When the music stopped, and she and Brandon were finished dancing, Mr. Wonderful went right over to her and asked her to dance. I was actually surprised she accepted, but I figured it would end with her putting him in his place on no uncertain terms. I watched them dance, and was surprised to see her laughing and smiling so cheerfully, clearly enjoying their conversation.
When the music stopped, they stood talking, then when the next number started they put their hands together again and began to dance once more. Again, she was laughing and enjoying his charm, which I had a hard time believing. For a second time after the music stopped, they stood chatting and she laughed at his jokes, charmed by whatever he was saying, then laid her head on his chest and they started dancing to the third tune.
Once again she chuckled as he talked and delighted her with his wit. When that number stopped, she took him by the hand and walked him to our table. "Dan, this is Charles. He is from Dallas, and he is here for the holidays. He was asking about the wineries around the valley. I was telling him it was a coincidence that I give tours of the wine industries in our area. "He's asked me to show him around the valley. Charley really knows the business," she said cheerfully.
He really knows how to give people the business, I thought. We shook hands, as if we had never had any conversation before. "So, Claire is showing you around the valley?" I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.
"He's picking me up tomorrow morning at eight," she said enthusiastically. "We'll spend the day touring the wineries. He really wants to learn about our area. He just may decide to invest here," she said cheerfully.
"So, how well do you know this Charley fellow?" I asked when he'd gone.
"Well, he owns thousands of acres in Dallas, and he is so very clever. He really has a great sense of humor," she said, almost bubbling with enthusiasm.
"So, you're spending the day with Charles?" I asked, again with as much sarcasm as I could get away with, but I didn't. She gave me one of those "don't-be-so-cruel looks that every husband dreads. When she finally stopped giving me the evil eye, she went on.
"And maybe dinner tomorrow night," she said slipping out of her dress as she got ready for bed.
"Dinner?" I said. "With Charley?"
"He really is serious about learning as much as he can about the wine business," she said. "He is so interesting. He just knows so much."
I crawled into bed trying not to get into anymore trouble, which had me biting my tongue. "So, where you going for dinner?" I wanted to say, 'This guy is trying to get into your pants, but that was obviously a losing approach.
"Santa Ynez. Charley know the owner and he wants me to taste the veal." I wanted to say, 'He wants to taste your veal," but I resisted and pulled the covers up to my chin.
The next day I was off to work, but I couldn't stop thinking about Claire and Charley, 'Charles', I mean. What a big phony. She didn't get home from "dinner" until 10:30, and I couldn't concentrate on the Lakers, the news of Trump's latest problems, or Dancing With the Stars. Finally, when she came in, she had to tell me about all the people who knew Charley and how everybody liked him and to hear his 'stories.'
By the time we got in bed I had my fill of hearing about Charley and how interesting he was and how much fun he was to be with. I sat in bed with my laptop and soon she says, "Did you know Charley is an award winning photographer?"
"Of course," I said, forgetting myself.
"What is that suppose to mean. He has gotten awards for his photographs and had them in magazines," she informed me with an air of wifely hostility in her voice. "Charley thinks I could be a model," she said with an air of female obstinance.
"Oh, really," I said with far too much skepticism in my voice for my own good.
"You don't think I am pretty enough to be a photographer's model?" she asked indignantly.
"Of course I do," I said, trying to rescue myself. "You are beautiful."
"Well, Charley thinks so. He has offered me a job posing for a magazine shoot," she said with far too much rancor in her voice for me to redeem myself.
"Where,Texas?" I said, being as close to mocking as I'd dare.
"Cancun," she replied soberly.
"Cancun? Really?" I gasped. "Cancun?" I repeated.
"He'll pay the airfare, the hotel fee, and give me a thousand dollars for three days work," she said sounding overjoyed and pleased with herself. How could one argue with a thousand dollars? How could I tell her he had wanted to know if I would let her fuck him? How could even a halfway sensible husband burst her bubble by telling her it was all a ruse to get her into bed, that he was a scumbag who just wanted to have sex with her?
"That sounds great," I said not even able to sound sincere to myself. "On your first professional job? A thousand dollars? Wow." The trick is to sound happy for her, and still not tell her he is a pussy hound out to fuck her and laugh in her husband's face.
She told me she had tickets to fly out of LAX on Saturday and return Wednesday night. Could I have been wrong about old horny Charley? No. "Is this fashion photography, bikini, bedroom, or what? Not nudes?"
"Glamor," she said. "Tasteful, beauty shots," she added. "There could be some partial nudity, but I am no prude. I have been to the nude beach. He asked me that. 'Have you ever been nude in front of people. Well, I have. Nudity is not lewd. I am no prude," she repeated.
"Of course not," I said. "How do you feel about posing nude?"
"Partially nude," she corrected.
"Which part?" I said trying to hide my sarcasm.
"I won't do porn," she said.
"I am glad to hear that," I said. "Does Charley do porn?"
She gave me a "how-could-think-that" look and didn't answer.
She left that Saturday morning with high hopes that I didn't have the nerve to dash. I just hoped she wouldn't end up in a Dallas suburb with me having to go get her and administer mental health repair.
She called in a day, saying that bad weather had eliminated Cancun, but that she was in Corpus Christi, Texas, and they were going to do the shoot on one of the coastal islands in the Gulf. I wondered if it really was porn she had signed up for. How would she handle that? How would she handle finding out Charley was a fraud?
I spent a lot of the time wondering just what was happening in front of the lens in Texas, if there really was a lens, and if Charley tried to talk her into bed, and if he did try, was he successful?
I got texts from her everyday, and she talked like things were going well. On Wednesday, I met her at LAX and she didn't have her characteristic bounce, smile, or cheerful expression. The drive home was pretty silent, which was a bad sign that things on Los Padres Island hadn't gone as swimmingly as they could have.
Finally, just before we pulled into the driveway, it all came out. "Charley did have porn in mind," she revealed in a whisper. "He wanted to be the other person in the shots, and he had a guy there to take the pictures." I asked what she has been doing the last few days, and she said, "Running away from Charley."