Twisted (8 page)

Kevin massaged her left leg and then moved over to the right. Finally, he made it down to her feet, taking care of each little toe and stroking the soft padding beneath her feet. “You don’t have any corns or calluses,” he said.

“I try not to wear tight shoes,” she told him. “And I get a pedicure every two weeks.”

“Good practice,” he said, gently massaging her little toe.

Tina felt her stomach tighten.
It’s just a toe
. She moaned.
Then why does it feel so good?

Kevin worked his way up her legs again, his fingers coming to rest just at her hips near her behind.

Tina closed her eyes again, imagining what those fingers would feel like thrust deep inside of her.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“So relaxed,” Tina moaned as his hands moved over to stomach and his fingers dug into her ab muscles. “I’ve never had a massage quite like this before.”

Kevin spread his fingers and rounded the area where she was sure her womb was located. He pressed gently and she got wet between the legs.

“Ooh,” she said. “I had no idea I was so sensitive in the belly area.”

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” he asked. His voice dropped an octave.

“No,” Tina said, trying to fight off the feeling that she was about to come. She bit her lip.
How can this be possible? The man is just rubbing my stomach
. She was going to die from embarrassment if he dipped those fingers any lower. He gently ran his fingers over her stomach just above her shaved mound and she trembled. Just an inch lower and he would know just how effective his massage was. He continued to rub the area, making her knees weak and her heart pound.
Dip lower
, she pleaded inside her head.
Just a little more
.

Kevin moved his hands abruptly.

“Oh no,” Tina groaned.

“What’s wrong with you?” Kevin asked, coming to the side of the table.

“Nothing,” Tina said, quickly sitting up, bringing the sheet with her. “My body feels so alive.”

Kevin chuckled. “Then we have to do this again real soon.”

“I feel like I can go to bed and have pleasant dreams.”

“Have you been having trouble sleeping?” His eyes weren’t focused on her face, but on her breasts.

“Yes,” Tina said, adjusting the sheet. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Tina shook her head and her hair spilled forward into her face. She felt Kevin’s fingers move it back. “No, it’s personal,” she replied, aware of the tall Asian’s heat radiating over to her.

“Well, let me know if you ever do,” he said, gently stroking her hair back off her forehead.

She wished he wouldn’t do that since her body was still quite aroused from the massage. Tiny sensations ran through her and had her wondering just for a moment what it would be like to get with a man like him. She could picture him thrusting between her thighs, caressing her and making her feel like she was the only woman in the world.

“Earth to Tina,” Kevin said. “You zoned out on me for a moment.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I think I’d better get dressed. Thanks for the massage.”

Kevin smiled at her. “Any time,” he said, and then he left her to get dressed.

****

Erik had returned from his vacation and Tina was busy unpacking his suitcase as she usually did to remove his dirty clothes so she could wash them. “What is this?” Tina asked picking up a filmy pair of red female panties.

“What’s what?” Erik asked as he sat on the bed with the remote control in his hand, flipping through channels trying to find some sports.

“These?” Tina asked, holding them up by the band so Erik could get a good look at them.

“Did you buy some new panties?” Erik asked, half looking and half paying attention to the television.

“No,” Tina said, tossing them at him. “My ass isn’t that wide. I just pulled these out of your suitcase.”

Erik didn’t answer.

“Bad enough I have to wash your clothes, but I’ll be damned if I wash your bitch’s dirty drawers.” She bundled up his clothes and stuffed them back into his suitcase.

“What are you doing with my stuff? That’s a three-hundred dollar Italian shirt you’re wrinkling.

“Take them to her and let her wash them, and I know how much that shirt cost. I still have the receipt.” Tina stormed out of the bedroom and went down stairs to her office. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. She half expected him to follow her and try to give her some excuse, but the cheating coward didn’t come down. She didn’t care anyway because she had a class scheduled with Kevin in a half hour. She grabbed her car keys and her gym bag and dashed out of the house.

It was another mixed class. Alexis had arrived and walked over to her. “What’s wrong now?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Tina said.

“Girl, don’t lie to me. I can see it written all over your face.”

Tina refused to cry, but the tears welled up in her eyes.

“Come on. You can tell me about it while you change.” Alexis ushered Tina out of the main exercise room before anyone could see how upset she was.

Tina stripped out of her clothes and changed into her Taiji outfit. “I found a pair of red women’s panties in Erik’s suitcase,” she finally admitted.

“Not yours, I’m sure,” Alexis said.

“No, they’re a couple of sizes too big.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

Tina nodded. “He tried to play it off like a joke and then he wouldn’t say a thing.”

“Honey, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Tina said. “All I know is that I can’t continue on this way. I’ve tried to be understanding, and I even suggested that he get some help, but you know him, he won’t admit that he’s done anything.”

“So, he took her on the trip with him. You knew that already from the conversation in the beauty shop. The only person who is stopping you from doing anything is you. Put his ass out. Send him packing.”

“Where is he going to go?” Tina asked.

“Who the fuck cares?” Alexis asked. “What are you going to do, take him back, and sleep with him again with the chance of him giving you something horrible like a pelvic inflammatory disease or crabs?”

Tina sniffed, shook her head, and smiled weakly. “No.”

“Then make a wise decision and get him out of your life. You don’t need him. There are plenty of other men in the sea.”

“I’ll think about it,” Tina said. She sighed to herself. That’s all she’d been doing lately…thinking. It was getting to the point that she couldn’t sleep for all the activity going on in her brain.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be buying him that suit shop now, will you?”

“Hell no,” Tina said as she zipped up her gym bag, sat down, and took off her shoes. “He’d be lucky if I buy him soap to bathe with.”

Alexis chuckled and led her out of the dressing room. “That’s it, girl. Do the small things first and then advance up to the payback.”

Erik wasn’t home when she returned and hadn’t come back by the time she went to bed.

****

“How would you like to join Jerome and me for lunch today?” Alexis asked Tina the next day. Tina had just got out of a meeting with some big name executives whom she met with to talk about their contributions to her sponsored charities.

“I don’t want to be a third wheel,” Tina said as she straightened up her desk and piled the folders she had been using in her in-basket. “And you don’t have to feel sorry for me, I’m okay.”

“What are you talking about?” Alexis asked. “Jerome and I would love to have you join us.”

“What restaurant are you going to?”

“Dominoes.”

“Ooh, Italian.”

“And you know how you love Italian food,” Alexis said.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be in the way.”

“What if I invite Kevin to go along with us? Would you go then?”

She hadn’t seen her partner all morning. “Only if he agrees.”

Alexis walked out of the office and returned a few minutes later. “He’s going,” she replied. “Apparently, he likes Italian food too.”

“What time are we leaving?”

“You have five minutes,” Alexis told her. “Kevin has agreed to drive us to the restaurant and Jerome is going to meet us there.”

“You got him to volunteer in just the two minutes you were out of this office?”

“Girl, I got mad skills,” Alexis said. “Kevin couldn’t wait to volunteer once he found out you were going too.”

Tina looked at her oddly. Of course he would. She would make the perfect cover. “Okay, let me get my purse.”

“I’ll meet you downstairs in the lobby.” Alexis left out of the office.

Tina grabbed her purse and her keys and walked out of the door. She peeped into Erik’s office, but didn’t see him. She knew he was there because she had heard him earlier when he arrived. He was probably in the men’s room, or walking around the office charming the pants off some of the other female employees.

“Looking for someone?”

Tina jumped. “Don’t do that. You nearly scared the life out of me.”

“Why so jumpy?” Kevin asked as they continued down the hall together.

“I guess I’m a little tense,” Tina said. “Maybe I should take up jogging to relieve some of this stress.”

“What stress?” Kevin asked.

“You know, meetings, phones, email.”

“Oh, that is called life stress. That can easily be remedied with a full body deep tissue massage.”

“Don’t temp me,” Tina said. “But I have a thousand things to do before we leave for San Francisco.”

He pushed the button for the elevator. “Yes, I’m looking forward to getting away for a couple of days myself.”  The elevator door opened and Tina stepped in. “I’ll see you downstairs in a moment after I get the car out of the garage.”

“Okay,” she said. The door closed slowly, but not before Kevin rewarded her with a devastating smile that made her stomach do a somersault. The door closed. She put her hand against her abdomen and it throbbed with excitement.
Why is it doing this
?

Kevin arrived moments after she made it down to the lobby. Alexis was busy talking with Hank, the doorman.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Ferrari,” Hank said. Hank was a nineteen-year-old who’d been working for them about a year. She remembered the day she hired him. She had been visiting a local orphanage and she learned that he was about to be put out into the world on his own as soon as he made eighteen. She’d seen him a couple of times before that and he always spoke to her and had smiled. She knew what it was like to be alone in the world, without family and having to grow up quickly. Hank had good grades in school, but the most he could expect to find was a minimum wage job. Since joining her company, he’d enrolled in college and was taking classes at night. She saw a bright future for him and she had plans for gradually moving him up into the company since he had a unique ability to know a lot about electronics and video games and she’d been thinking for a while about branching out into something like that.

“Good afternoon, Hank. Is Ms. Bryant bothering you again?”

Hank blushed.

“Girl, he’s so cute,” Alexis said. “Just look at that smile. I already told him if I was ten years younger, I’d give his girlfriend a run for her money.”

“You have a girlfriend now?” Tina asked.

Hank nodded. “We just started to date. She’s a business major too.”

“Good for you,” Tina said. “Tell her to look me up with she graduates. I can always use another business advisor around here.”

“I’ll tell her,” Hank said, opening the door for them and rewarding them with another smile.

“Doesn’t it just make you feel all horny inside?” Alexis asked when they got a safe distance away from Hank.

“Girl, we’re going to go to jail for having such thoughts.”

“It’s not illegal to look,” Alexis said, sliding into the back seat of Kevin’s car and forcing her to sit up front so it didn’t look like he was chauffeuring them around.

“What’s not illegal?” Kevin asked once they were both inside and seat belted in.

“Ogling the doorman,” Alexis answered.

“You mean Hank?” Kevin asked.

Tina nodded. “Alexis has the hots for him.”

“What is he, ten?” Kevin asked as he drove away from the curve.

“Nineteen,” Alexis answered proudly.

“What can you do with a nineteen-year-old?” Kevin asked.

Both she and Alexis giggled.

“They’re like little Energizer bunnies. They keep going and going and going.”

Kevin looked over at her. “Do you have the hots for him too?”

“Who, me?” Tina asked. “No. I’m only interested in him for his mind.”

Alexis laughed again. “Sure you are.”

“Shaddup,” Tina told her. “I might need him to manage one of my businesses one of these days and the last thing I want to do is sleep with someone on the payroll.”

“Ooh, you did not go there,” Alexis said. “What if Erik would have heard you?”

“Screw him,” Tina replied, suddenly serious.

Kevin looked over at her but did not comment. That’s what she liked about him. There was something about the strong and silent type that made her stomach weak.

****

Doctor Jerome Bennett waited patiently in the restaurant when they arrived. The waitress brought them over to the table and Tina gave him a friendly, sisterly kiss on the cheek. “I haven’t seen you in months,” she told him as Kevin helped her into a seat.

Jerome wore a nice double-breasted navy blue suit and she bet he hadn’t paid a fortune for it like the ones Erik wore. And Jerome looked good in it. He was clean-cut and shaven and he reminded her a little of an actor she watched on the television lately.

Kevin looked equally good in a dark brown suit. He was much taller than Jerome, but Jerome outweighed him by a couple of pounds.

“I’ve been busy,” Jerome said. “Sometimes being a doctor has its disadvantages. It takes me away from my lovely girlfriend more nights than I like.” He rose, kissed Alexis on the cheek, and then helped her into a seat.

“This is my partner, Kevin Chen,” Tina told Jerome. “Kevin, this is Alexis’ boyfriend, Jerome Bennett.”

The two men met and shook hands.