Last Friday, Dan met Marc and a few other friends at the Elephant & Castle for a few drinks after work. After finishing a small project for his group director to review over the weekend, he left the office and, the weather enjoyable, walked a few blocks to the bar, situated on West Adams between Clark and LaSalle Streets.
When he entered, he found his friends occupying a few stools on the backside of the bar. Joining them, he ordered a Boddington's.
"I fuckin' hate the Sox," Marc spat, continuing a conversation begun before Dan's arrival. "I hope the Tribe pounds the shit of them next week, and then again during the first round."
"Don't be such a dick," Bob responded. "They're a Chicago team, for God's sake. Just because they're not the Cubs doesn't mean you can't root for 'em."
"Shut up, Southsider," Steve responded with a pint of Guinness poised at his smile, referring to the fact that Bob had grown up in Beverly.
"Whatever. How many games out are the pussy Cubs, huh? Twenty-one? Twenty-one-and-a-half?"
Dan just laughed. A product of the North Shore, it was presumed that he would be a Cubs fan. In actuality, he hated baseball. Never played it as a kid, never liked it as he grew up. What a boring fuckin' "sport," was his view.
As the northside-versus-southside debate continued, Dan glanced around the bar. As his scanned the crowd, they almost passed over her but quickly shot back and fell on Kelly Fitzgerald.
He hadn't seen her since that Friday night in Old Town several months ago. She had occupied his mind on occasion. Throughout their relationship, he had never made any emotional attachment to her. Nonetheless, it was nearly impossible to be that intimate – not to abuse the commonly accepted meaning of that word – with someone and not develop some sort of connection.
Life had thrown her a curve ball. Well, that's not entirely true. She had thrown it at herself. But despite that – despite the nightmare that she had created – she still looked good. Her flaxen hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, revealing high cheek bones and sun-kissed facial features. Manicured nails gripped a perspiring drink. As Dan watched her, she laughed, tilting her head back, her full lips smeared with a flat-red lipstick parting into a broad smile, her bright blue eyes sparkling, flirtatious. He craned his neck to see who she was with but his view was blocked by the crowd.
Dan returned his attention to the sports conversation, glad to hear that the closing baseball season was no longer the subject. Instead, Bob, a Purdue graduate, was extolling the virtues of Kyle Orton, trying to make the case that Orton should be the Bears staring quarterback this season.
A few minutes later, Dan shot a furtive glance toward Kelly. The crowd had shifted and he saw her engaged in a rather close conversation with a stocky black guy, bald head shining in the overhead lighting. His thick fingers closed over her slim elegant ones as he leaned into her, a soft kiss passing between them.
Dan saw his lips move and Kelly responded with a nod. She bent to retrieve something from the floor and reappeared a moment later, black leather messenger bag in hand. Hand-in-hand, Kelly and her suitor bobbed and weaved through the crowd. Dan watched as they exited the bar and hailed a cab, the black man holding the door for his little blond feast-for-the-night.
He stayed at the Elephant for a few more pints before begging off around 6:30, exhausted from a long week that had him in San Antonio, Atlanta, and Knoxville before returning to Chicago late on Thursday. When he entered his condo, he dropped his bag by the front door, threw his suit coat over a leather club chair, and collapsed on the couch with remote control in hand.
Cycling through the channels, thoughts of Kelly and their time together flashed through his mind. There were times when he missed her. Not her, really, but the sexual adventure she leant to his life. Seeing her tonight dredged one such adventure from deep in his memory and into clear focus.
* * *
Kelly's bright blue eyes fluttered open and she reached across the bed for her husband. Her hand found only empty space; Mike had already left for work. Stretching, her tanned arms above her head, she rolled her luscious body the other way and found the orange numerals on her alarm clock. Six-thirty.
She floated in and out of sleep for the next hour or so, dreams drifting through her subconscious. She couldn't remember their content, but she was restless each time she awoke. Lying on her side, she rubbed her thighs together. Kelly wasn't restless; she was excited.
Her gynecologist had cleared her vagina safe for intercourse two months previous, about six weeks after Evelyn was born. Since that time, she and Mike had taken advantage of those rare moments alone, those moments when Evelyn was sleeping and neither she nor him were too tired.
But something was missing. It wasn't a mystery. She knew what it was. She hadn't been fucked in four or five months. Made love? Yes. Sex even? Sure. Mike wasn't all chivalry and gentleness. But she hadn't been fucked, hadn't felt the nasty abandonment that so often accompanied her sexual assignations. She missed it, the sweat-dripping, nipple-throbbing, hair-pulling, ass-slapping, cunt-stretching, delirium-inducing fucking that she had found so gratifying prior to Evelyn's birth. Now, she yearned for it.
Evelyn's cries pulled her from her thoughts. Before she could raise herself from the Frette linen bedsheet, she heard Esmerelda on the stairs and her daughter's cries soon ceased.
With the sun shining brightly in their bedroom, Kelly padded across the room to the walk-in closet. She shed the gray cotton shorts and loose-fitting tee-shirt she had slept in and pulled a pair of black Juicy Couture sweat pants from one of her shelves. She found the matching top and a simple white tee-shirt buried in a corner. Once dressed, she pulled a pair of bobby socks over her small feet and laced up a pair of white Nike running shoes and bounded down the stairs, the smell of Honduran coffee permeating the air.
"Morning, Esmerelda," she announced bouncing into the kitchen, anticipating her morning caffeine injection.
"Good Morning, Mrs. MacGuire. May I pour you a cup of coffee?" The MacGuires' housekeeper and nanny had just put Evelyn in a swinging chair, having fed her from a bottle.
"I'll get it myself," Kelly responded, moving through the almost-bare kitchen. "Thanks, Esmerelda."
After filling a mug, Kelly sat at the kitchen table and read the first section of the Wall Street Journal. Esmerelda had taken Evelyn upstairs for a nap when there was a knock at the back door.
She peered through the back hallway toward the door, finding two black men standing on her back porch. She knew who they were and opened the door. "Good morning," she said, a bright smile creasing her classically beautiful features. "You must be Jim's guys."
"That's right, ma'am. He sent us over to get started." The MacGuires were beginning the rehabilitation of their three-flat in Lincoln Park, which would be accomplished in stages so they could remain living in the home. The first floor was the first stage, and these men were here to essentially tear the first floor of her home apart.
"Well," she said, stepping back to allow them to enter. "Come on in. I'll get out of your way so you can get started. Everything is cleared out of the first floor except for a few things here in the kitchen. I'll have our housekeeper get that stuff out of your way."
"Thanks, ma'am." The two men squeezed past Kelly and into the back hallway, their bulging arms brushing against her athletic little body and milk-filled breasts in the process. Kelly followed them into the kitchen and called upstairs for Esmerelda.
"Just a moment, Mrs. MacGuire," came the response. Kelly turned back to the demolition crew.
"I'm Kelly MacGuire, by the way," she introduced herself, extending a hand.
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. MacGuire. I'm Jerome," said the apparent leader of the two-man crew, taking her small, soft hand in his larger, calloused one. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "This is Reggie."
Just then, Esmerelda appeared in the kitchen and Kelly gave her a few directions and introduced her to the construction workers. She glanced at her watch. Nine o'clock. "I gotta go now. If you need me, I'll have my cell with me. I'm going to be at East Bank for a while and then taking care of some things for the charity thing tonight. I should be back around three or so."
"Okay, Mrs. MacGuire. I will be gone when you get back. I am taking Evelyn to your parents and will go home from there."
"That's fine, Esmerelda. Have a good day." She turned toward the construction workers. "Have fun, guys. See you in a few hours."
Kelly retreated to the second floor of her home and gave Evelyn, asleep in her crib, a kiss on the forehead, ensuring that her child's overnight bag was appropriately packed. In her bedroom, she found a Chanel clutch and put her wallet, keys and phone in it. Remembering that their garage had been torn down the day before, she left through the front door and found her BMW on the street a block down from their house.
* * *
Her lithe thighs burned and sweat tickled her nose before dripping onto the Stair-Master's foot paddles. Kelly had been on the machine for twenty-five minutes and felt as though she was going to collapse. Usually, she only spent fifteen minutes on climbing simulated stairs but her mind had drifted.
Two men rode Stair-Masters in the row in front of her, the muscles in their legs rippling, their dark flesh glistening in sweat. Loose athletic shorts were incapable of masking their powerful butt cheeks. Kelly's thoughts drifted back to her early morning musings: god, how she craved filthy, no-holes-barred fucking.
Her sexy little body exhausted, she stepped off the machine to end her workout, using a towel to wipe sweat from her face, and made her way back to the locker room, where she planted her firm ass on a bench in the steam room for fifteen minutes before showering.
From the East Bank Club, Kelly steered her car north on Franklin to Ohio, then over to Michigan Avenue. The digital clock on the console read eleven-fifteen. She turned off Michigan Avenue just before Neiman-Marcus and found an empty space in the "15-minute" zone. She knew she'd be more than fifteen minutes, but also knew the traffic cops didn't police the zone heavily.
Inside, she took the escalator upstairs to the women's section to pick up her cocktail dress for tonight's charity event. Kelly sat on the board of directors of the charity sponsoring tonight's event, and was chairing the planning committee. Unsatisfied with the contents of her closet, she had chosen a Carmen Marc black velvet gown to wear. After trying on the tailor's alterations, satisfied with the results, she quickly exited Neiman's with the garment bag thrown over her shoulder and got back in her car. 'Perfect,' she thought. A short ride up to Oak Street and she'd be right on time for her manicure appointment.
Kelly parked in the Bloomingdale's building and walked around the block to Oak Street, walking through her manicurist's door just before twelve-thirty. An Asian lady filed and buffed her toes while another did the same to her fingernails. Kelly stared, her eyes glazed over, as the fire-engine red lacquer was applies to her nails. Her three-carat engagement ring winked back at her as she lapsed into a daydream.
An image of her little white hand with bright red nails, diamond glittering, wrapped around a fat black cock, skittered across her subconscious. Kelly's vagina moistened and she rubbed her thighs together absently. The manicurist snapped her from her reverie with a tap on the back of her hand.
