The Wives of Beverly Row 2: Lust Has a New Address (5 page)

“She’s been a good friend since I moved onto the row.” There was also the fact that Becky had fallen head over heels for Kyle but she didn’t bring that up.

“I understand,” Matt said. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and Ariel closed her eyes as he did it. She was right on the verge of giving in. She would have loved nothing more than to let Matt take her home and spread her out on his bed. “At least let me get you a cab,” he said.

VI

B
ECKY WASN’T ONE BIT HAPPY.
She was on the balcony outside her mother’s bedroom, peering into Trudy Luxton’s backyard through a pair of binoculars she’d bought at some garage sale when she was fourteen. She’d never had much use for them till now.

“What are you doing out there?” Ariel called from her bed.

It was Saturday morning and Ariel hadn’t seen her mother hungover like this in a long time.

“Looks like you had a nice night,” Becky said.

“It was fun, but I had too many martinis.”

“You got back late.”

“It wasn’t that late,” Ariel said.

“It was after one. I saw the cab.”

“Hey,” Ariel said, “at least I wasn’t sneaking in at six this morning with my tail between my legs.”

Becky looked in at her. Ariel was lying on the bed with her blanket over her head.

“Let me get you some aspirin,” she said. She might as well do something useful. She couldn’t see squat from the balcony anyway. She’d wanted to go to the mall with Kyle but he told her he was going over to Trudy’s to help her with her dating profiles. Becky had wanted to have a fight over it. She’d wanted to ask him why the hell he thought a forty-something year old woman was looking for his help on a dating profile but she’d held her tongue. She didn’t feel she knew Kyle well enough yet to have an argument like that. If they were officially going out, she might have said something, but as things stood, they were just friends. Friends who made out, but still, just friends.

She grabbed the aspirin and poured a glass of ice water for her mother and went back upstairs.

“Thank you, honey,” Ariel said as she downed the pills.

Becky went back onto the balcony and scanned Trudy’s backyard. She could see the side of the house but she couldn’t see into it. The Medeiros’s house was blocking most of her view. She could see Trudy’s pool but no one was outside.

“What are you doing?” Ariel said again.

“Nothing mom. Just trying to spot wild birds.”

“Wild birds?”

That was one thing to call Trudy Luxton. “It’s just a biology project, mom.”

VII

Z
OLA HAD BEEN TO THE GYM
, she loved starting her Saturday morning with a workout. Afterwards she had breakfast at the juice bar and then did a little shopping. She was glad to see Jake’s car was still in the driveway when she got home. Often on the weekend, she’d get back and his car would be gone. Then she’d fret all day about where he was. She’d fret but she’d stop herself from calling him. Calling never helped. Sometimes he’d be back in an hour. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home for two days. She never asked where he’d been. That never did any good either.

“Honey, I’m home,” she called as she fumbled through the door with her shopping bags. A
little
shopping in Zola’s world meant less than five bags. This morning she had three.

No one answered.

“Jake?” she called. She started up the stairs.

“Just a second, honey,” Jake called from his office. “I’ll be right out.”

She peeked around his door and instantly wished she hadn’t. Jake was sitting at his desk in front of his computer and he was completely naked.

“Jesus,” he cried out, “give me a second.”

“So sorry, honey,” she said as she backed out of the room. She was mortified. She hated catching him in the middle of something like that. The problem with Jake was that he was
always
in the middle of something like that.

He came out of the office. He was covering his dick with his hands but Zola could see that it was completely erect.

“What were you doing in there?” she said. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything, she always regretted starting fights like this, but she couldn’t help it, not with him standing in front of her, stark naked and erect as a stallion.

“Can’t you give me one ounce of privacy?” he said angrily.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Jake,” she said but he brushed past her into the bedroom. There were so many occasions when she’d caught him watching porn or chatting with women on the Internet that she’d have thought she’d be over it by now, but she wasn’t. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She felt panicky, short of breath. She just couldn’t handle this, she couldn’t live like this. She needed a man who was committed to her, not one who acted like a teenager and started watching porn as soon as she turned her back on him. “Jake, can we talk about this?”

“I’m taking a shower,” he said.

She dropped her shopping bags and followed him into the bedroom. “Please talk to me,” she begged. “I can’t go on like this.”

He stood there, completely naked, and looked at her. He wasn’t bad-looking for forty-four, he had an athletic build and a decent amount of muscle on his upper-body. He worked out frequently. Zola was fifteen years younger than he was and she just wanted to be enough to satisfy him sexually. She knew she should have been enough. She was gorgeous, she’d had her boobs done, she got looks from men every time she left the house. She was a cute little Latina bombshell and she knew it. But for some reason that wasn’t enough for Jake, it never had been. He was a compulsive cheater. He told her he was a sex addict as if that was supposed to excuse everything he did.

“You’re meeting up with someone today, aren’t you?”

Jake looked at her. Then he sighed. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said. “I work hard. I provide you with this home, with all the money you love so much, and in return I expect to be allowed to live my life the way I choose.”

“I’m not asking you to explain yourself,” she said.

“Yes you are.”

“I just want to know what the hell is going on,” she said. “Where do I stand? Who am I married to?”

“You know who you’re married to.”

She started crying. She wasn’t doing it for sympathy, she didn’t want attention, she was just overcome with the feeling of helplessness that she always felt when she had to face Jake like this. He held all the cards. He had all the power in the relationship. She had nothing.

“You’re meeting up with a couple, aren’t you?”

He looked up at her then, his eyes flashing with a mixture of embarrassment, anger and denial. He hadn’t realized she knew so much about what he was into.

“Don’t tell me you aren’t,” she said. “I know what it is. I know what
hotwifing
is.”

Jake shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said.

“Jake, please. I’m not crazy. I’m your wife. We can talk about these things.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jake said. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Zola sat on the bed. She could see that it was no good, there was no point arguing with him over this. He was steeped in so much denial, so much untruth, that she wouldn’t get anywhere. All she’d done was made an already unbearable situation even worse.

He was standing there in front of her, completely naked, and amazingly his penis was still as erect as it had been when she’d walked in on him. She knew she was being weak, she knew she was playing the part of the submissive, abused, dominated wife, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to reach out to him. She wanted to bring him back to her. She needed him. She needed him to feel safe and secure in her world. She felt like she was adrift on the ocean, all alone.

She pulled her dress up over her head. She was wearing a beautiful, purple lace bra and matching panties and she knew she was a sexual, sensual, beautiful woman. She’d known that all her life. At least she
thought
she knew that. She’d never had problems with self-confidence but this situation with Jake was beginning to take it’s toll.
Why doesn’t he ever want me
? she asked herself. It seemed, the only time he was interested in her was when his stupid friends came over.

She got up onto the bed and crawled across it toward him. He watched her coming. She didn’t look up at his face. She was afraid that if she did she would only see disdain.

She reached the side of the bed. He was standing right in front of her. Without looking up at him she took his erect penis in her hand and stroked it, gently. Then she bent down over it and kissed the tip. It was an intimate and affectionate gesture and she knew that Jake didn’t deserve intimacy or affection from her. She knew that she was worth more that this, that she deserved more, she knew she was lowering herself, making herself worth less than him, but she felt so powerless.

She looked up at him. His face was blank but at least it was calm. His eyes were closed. She opened her mouth and took the length of his cock deep into the back of her throat. She moved her head back and forth slowly, allowing the head of his cock to slide against the softness of her throat. She wanted him to come. She wanted him to feel attached to her in some way.

She licked the underside of his shaft and allowed it to slide back and forth in her throat until she could hear his breathing change. His cock was rock hard. It throbbed with a muscular pulse and she knew he was ready to come. She took it out of her mouth and looked up at him.

“Jake,” she said quietly. She could not have felt more submissive. She could not have felt more subservient to him. He held all the cards and she was little more than a servant to him. Her only role was to pleasure him. “Jake,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes.

She licked the underside of his shaft, sucking on the tip teasingly. “I can be whatever you want,” she whispered. “Let me be your hotwife.”

He gasped. His cock pulsed as her tongue caressed the tip. She leaned back a few inches from it and opened her mouth wide. She looked up at him. A long string of semen squirted from the eye of his cock and splattered across her face. She moaned encouragingly. Another string flew threw the air and hit her mouth and lips. She moaned again. A third squirt came down on her forehead, getting in her hair. “That’s it, baby,” she said and licked his cum from her lips. “Let me be whatever you want. Let me be your hotwife. I’ll make you so proud.”

VIII

A
RIEL’S PHONE RANG.
She looked at the screen. It was Gabe. For some reason her heart fluttered when she saw his name. Gabe had been an awful husband, that much was undeniable, he’d cheated and he’d hidden money from her and Becky, but there had still been a lot of good times. It was hard to forget all of the love, all of the passion that had gone into sixteen years of marriage. If she was absolutely truthful, she’d have had to admit that those sixteen years had been a lot of fun. If it wasn’t for the cheating she’d still have been with him. She could have forgiven him for hiding money, everyone had their crazy shit to deal with, but the cheating she just couldn’t get past.

She was sitting by the pool in her bathing suit with a lemonade and she hesitated before picking up. She knew how flirty Gabe could still be. The only reason she answered was in case it was something about Becky.

“Gabe?” she said.

“Ariel, I’m glad I caught you.”

“It’s a cellphone, Gabe. You’re always going to catch me.”

Gabe laughed. “That’s true,” he said.

“So what can I do for you?”

He laughed again. “That’s what I love about you, Ariel. You always get straight to the point.”

Ariel rolled her eyes. Why did he have to speak like that? That’s what he
loved
about her? He was just playing with her heartstrings.

“So, I was wondering if you’d help me out with something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a business proposition.”

“A business proposition? Gabe, are you crazy? I was in business with you for sixteen years and you ripped me off.”

“Ariel, I’ve apologized for that.”

“You didn’t apologize. The State of California ordered you to pay me back.”

“Close enough,” he said.

Ariel rolled her eyes. Sometimes he was impossible.

“So what is it?”

“The deal?”

“Yes, the deal.”

“I don’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Because you know I’ll say no.”

“You’ll say yes because there’s going to be a lot of money in it for you.”

“Why does that sound familiar, Gabe?”

“Ariel, honey, just give me half an hour. Let me buy you lunch. You won’t regret it.”

She looked at her watch. She had a feeling she
was
going to regret this but she couldn’t help herself. Nothing in the world was as much fun as one of Gabe’s harebrained business schemes.

“Where do you want to meet?” she said.

“The oyster place.”

*

A
RIEL FELT NOSTALGIC AS SHE
drove down to Santa Monica. She’d been so mad with Gabe during the divorce that she hadn’t allowed herself to think of all the fun they’d had together. Now that she’d received all the money she was entitled to and had a completely separate life from Gabe, she was able to appreciate some of the nicer things about being with him. For one thing, he’d been fun. For another, he was romantic. The oyster place by the pier had been a favorite of theirs for years. It was one of the first places they’d gone to on a date and the fact that Gabe had suggested it for their meeting meant something to her. It either meant he missed her, or that he was trying to convince her to get in on this business deal he wanted to talk about. Either way, Ariel was more than ready for any charm he tried to throw her way.

When she got to the restaurant, Gabe was waiting at a table overlooking the ocean, a bottle of beer in front of him. He had on jeans, a white shirt and an Oakland A’s ball cap. He always managed to look so cool. And now that he wasn’t hiding his money from her he looked pretty rich too.

He stood up when she got to the table.