8. Nancy Plans Something Special
Nancy and I got up at 6:30 Tuesday morning and began our day fairly normally. We sort of talked around what had happened last night, but we couldn't keep from smiling at each other. And it was hard for me to keep my hands off her. We hadn't come down yet from the sexual high we'd enjoyed last night while giving young Bryce the sex show of his life.
I got dressed immediately but Nancy, who didn't need to be at work until around 11:00 o'clock, stayed in her short terry cloth robe. We had coffee and English muffins in the kitchen while listening to the news on the radio. I had no idea when Bryce would be coming in from the studio cabin out back. He'd gone to bed pretty early the night before, so I figured he'd be in soon.
But when I left the house at about 7:30 he still hadn't made an appearance. Nancy, still in her rather indecent robe, kissed me good-bye at the front door and I walked the two blocks to the bus stop.
She told me she meant to give Bryce breakfast when he came in, but that was all. She wasn't going to do any more teasing today. Bryce would have to be satisfied with the obscene show she'd given him the night before. Besides, he needed to get back to work upstairs. This, after all, was his main reason for being here.
Riding BART to Berkeley, I kept thinking about Nancy giving Bryce breakfast in her tiny robe. Would she be leaning over the table to serve him? Wouldn't the robe fall open? How could she help from teasing him?
I called her from work at about 9:30 and she told me Bryce had just gone upstairs to resume painting. She was getting ready for work. I asked her if she'd made breakfast for him.
"Of course, I did, Cal," she answered. "He's growing boy and needs his energy."
"But you were wearing your robe the whole time you were giving him breakfast, right?"
"Well, yes. And it wasn't easy. It keeps falling open, as you know. I tried not to show him much of my body, and I was almost completely successful."
"Almost?"
"I made one mistake. I'd just put some pancakes on the table for him and went back to the utensil drawer to get him a knife and fork. On the way back to the table, the fork fell out of my hand and on to the floor. When I leaned forward to get it, my robe fell open and gave him a pretty good look at my left breast. I didn't want to embarrass him, so I pretended I didn't notice what had happened. I just pulled the robe shut and got him another fork."
"Was dropping the fork really a mistake?" I asked.
"It actually was, unless you're someone who believes that accidents are the work of the subconscious mind. Besides, after all I showed him last night, this was pretty minor, right?"
I agreed with her. Then I asked her if she'd made it clear to him that he wouldn't be staying out in the studio cabin again tonight. This was something we'd decided on earlier in the morning.
"Yes," explained Nancy. "He's going home after work tonight. He'll probably be gone when you get home. I told him if he had to work late again, though, we'd let him stay over."
When I got home at from work, Nancy told me Bryce had left at about 4:00. He'd made a lot of progress and told her he thought he could be done by Thursday or Friday. She told him when he finished we'd throw him a little party. When she told me this, she had an evil expression on her face. I asked her what kind of party she had in mind, but she wouldn't say.
Several fairly uneventful days passed. Bryce painted during the day and went home each night to his uncle's house. He was treated to no further displays of my wife's body. Not that I knew of, that is.
Before leaving for work on Friday morning I checked upstairs to see if he was really as done as he said he was. Both bedrooms had at least one coat of flat latex on them, and they looked pretty good, though I saw a couple of places that needed further work. The bathroom, where he was using semi-gloss, needed another coat. If he got busy, it looked to me like he really could finish today.
When I told her the progress he'd made, Nancy said, "Well, it looks like we'll have to have that little party tonight to celebrate. Call me at the gallery later, so we can plan it, OK? I think we might make it something special for him, don't you?"
She said this just as I was going out the door, so I didn't have time to ask her what "something special" might be. I had some ideas, dirty ones, but they were only half-formed.
I called her at the gallery at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I asked her what she was planning tonight to celebrate Bryce's completing the job.
"I think we can push the envelope because of something Bryce told me," said Nancy. "I was going to tell you yesterday but I decided to save it as a surprise. Did you know he was going back to Kentucky almost as soon as he'd done with this job? He told me Vince doesn't want to put him up any longer. And he talked Bryce into completing his GED back there. I think they argued about it, but Vince insisted. He's only going to be around until Sunday."
"You mean you're not worried about him falling in love with you and becoming a pest?"
"Exactly."
"Well, that does change things," I said. "I still don't have any good ideas, but I'll try to think of something creative before I get home. You do the same, OK?"
She said she would. Then she said she loved me and rang off.
When I got home at about 6:30, Nancy and Bryce were sitting in the living room. He was pretty grubby, but Nancy looked very sexy. She was wearing a beautiful long skirt and the scoop neck white sweater she'd worn out shopping earlier in the week. She was braless, of course, so her breasts jiggled when she moved and her nipples stuck out prominently.
"I'm all done," he said, smiling. "Would you like to check my work?"
I followed him upstairs and looked at what he'd done. It really was a good job. As soon as it was dry we could move all our stuff back upstairs. But that meant we'd have to spend another night in the guest room. Bryce said he'd come by tomorrow with Vince's truck to pick up the ladder and a few other things.
"Can we go out to eat?" asked Nancy as soon as I came downstairs. "I asked Bryce what he likes to eat and he said Italian."
So we settled on a place in North Beach that we liked. Nancy and I were dressed to go out, but Bryce needed to clean up and change. So we agreed to stop by his Uncle Vince's place so he could make himself more presentable.
We dropped him off to do this and waited in the car. That's when we put the final touches on the plan we had for the rest of the evening. As will be seen, it worked out almost perfectly.
At about 8:30 we arrived at the small Italian restaurant in North Beach called the Rose Pistola. We would've been there earlier but parking was a real problem. We ate by candle light and Nancy looked absolutely radiant. Sometimes, when I write about my wife's body, I forget to mention what a pretty face she has.
Nancy and I had wine, but Bryce (who, in the candle light, looked even younger than eighteen) had to settle for soft drinks. Our plan called for loosening him up, but there would be time for that later at home.
Meanwhile, we put the first step in our plan in action. Nancy excused herself to go the women's room. While she was in there, she called me on her cell. Sitting with Bryce just next to me, I answered the call and pretended to be talking to someone who seemed to need me urgently to do something for him or her. I made some excuses, but ended up agreeing to "come over later." Then I rang off, looking at Bryce a little anxiously as though I didn't want him to know what this was all about.
When Nancy returned to the table, I leaned over to her and whispered in her ear, just loud enough for Bryce to hear, "Sharon called. She needs me later. I couldn't get out of it."
Nancy appeared to be upset. She looked daggers at me. Then she quickly drank two more glasses of wine and was about to order another glass when I said it was time for us to leave. Bryce, of course, was picking up on this little drama of ours and was obviously becoming uncomfortable. We had to be careful not to overplay the scene. We didn't want him to make a run for it.
The three of us got back to our house at about 10:00 o'clock. All the way home, Nancy sat stiffly in the front seat without talking to me. But she loosened up enough to give me a luke-warm embrace as we were about to go in the house. It was meant to convey the message to Bryce: "I'm not happy with my husband but I still love him."
Once inside, I broke out some beers for Bryce and me and got Nancy yet another glass of wine. I hoped she wasn't getting too drunk. The plan assumed that she'd become uninhibited, but I didn't want her getting ill. We sat around in the living room drinking, talking (mainly about what Bryce intended to do back in Kentucky), and half-watching a television show. After his third beer, Bryce became more and more relaxed, and I made him quite happy by handing him a generous check for the work he'd done.
At about 11:30, I took Nancy aside and told her (loud enough for Bryce to hear) that I had to go out for a while. I told her I'd try to be back in an hour or so, but that it might take longer.