i needed two hundred dollars for the water bill. that’s the honest answer. the more embarrassing version is that rick, my neighbor two doors down in the apartment complex, had been staring at me through his front window for a month and apparently he’d been thinking about how to fix that for a month too.
he caught me in the parking lot on a saturday morning while i was loading the mower into my truck. i mow lawns for seven apartments and their yards, sometimes i clean gutters, once i pressure-washed a deck for someone. the money is fine but never quite enough. rick came over with two coffees and a smile like we were old friends and said, “hey, i’ve got a project for you if you’re interested. pays two hundred dollars.”
“depends on the project,” i said.
“come over tonight. eight pm. just listen to what i have to say first.”
i should have said no. i almost did. but the water bill was due and i was eating canned beans for dinner and two hundred dollars is two hundred dollars and rick seemed normal enough, just a divorced guy living alone, too much furniture in his apartment, too much time on his hands.
he answered the door in a polo shirt and jeans. nice jeans. he smelled good. he had wine on the counter and he poured me a glass without asking if i wanted any and then he showed me what he was actually asking me to do.
“my ex-wife left some things,” he said. “i’ve been meaning to get rid of them but honestly i think they’re too nice to throw out. she was your size. maybe not tall like you but same build. i was wondering if you’d be willing to try some of them on. just try them on. take some pictures. i’ll pay you two hundred.”
he laid out the outfit on his bed. black thigh-highs with the seam running up the back. a white bra, expensive looking, tag still on. a pleated skirt, navy, short, definitely made for someone smaller or in a different decade. and underwear. white and tiny and lace.
“it’s a lot,” he said. “i know. but i’ve thought about this. if it makes you uncomfortable i’ll give you the two hundred anyway, no pictures, just to—think about it.”
my coffee was lukewarm. my water bill was due on monday. i said, “do you want me to try them on now?”
his face did something i can’t quite describe. relief, maybe. hunger. he showed me to the guest room.
they fit. that was the part that was weird about it. the thigh-highs went on smooth and the seam was perfect up the back of my leg and the skirt zipped up like it was made for me. the bra was soft and he’d bought the right size somehow (he must have measured something, or guessed, or thought about me in thigh-highs so many times he’d figured it out). when i looked at myself in the mirror i didn’t look like me. i looked like someone who belonged in his apartment, on his bed, in his fantasies.
when i came out he was sitting on the couch with a camera. not a phone. an actual camera with a lens. he stood up and he was already hard, you could see it, and he said, “you look incredible. just. stand right there.”
he took pictures. a lot of them. full body, then closer, then he asked me to pull the skirt up and i did and he photographed my cock in the tiny white panties and the way the thigh-highs looked against my skin and then he put the camera down and said, “i want to give you more money.”
“for what,” i said, even though i knew.
“to let me touch.”
“how much.”
“another two hundred. just touch. hands only if you want.”
two hundred dollars is rent. two hundred dollars is two weeks of food that isn’t beans. and his hands were already on me, warm through the bra, and i didn’t say no.
he bent down and sucked my cock through the panties. the fabric was thin enough that i could feel his mouth, warm and wet and careful, like he was trying to remember how to do this or like he’d never done it before or like he was savoring it. he pulled the panties down slowly and my cock came out and he looked at it for a second like it was a present he’d been waiting for and then he put it in his mouth.
his living room smelled like him, cologne and coffee and something older, like a house that’s been lived in by one person for too long. he was good at this. methodical. he didn’t rush. he used his hand on my base while his mouth worked the head and when i started getting close he pulled off and breathed for a second and then kept going, like he wanted to take his time.
“you want—” he said, pulling back, “do you want the three hundred?”
“what’s three hundred for.”
“i want to fuck you. over the island in the kitchen. i’ll pay three hundred.”
i was already at four hundred. seven hundred is a month. seven hundred is a lot. i said, “yeah.”
he stood up, still holding my cock, and he led me to the kitchen. the island was marble, cold under my thighs when he bent me over it. he got lube from the drawer like it was something he kept there for occasions like this, like he’d been waiting for an occasion to happen, and he opened me up with his fingers, slow, careful, whispering “okay?” and “good?” while he did it.
he was bigger than the fingers. when he pushed in it was a stretch, a burn, a moment where i tensed up and he stopped and waited, his hand on my lower back, and he said “breathe,” and i breathed, and it opened up. then he started moving and it got easier, or i got used to it, and he pushed deeper until his hips were flat against me and the marble was digging into my stomach.
“so tight,” he kept saying. “you’re so tight. god, i’m not gonna last.”
“good boy,” he said, against my ear, and i made a sound i have not made before or since, and he heard it, and he did it again.
he didn’t. he fucked me over the marble island and the kitchen was dark except for the light over the sink and i could see his face in the reflection in the window and he looked lost, like he’d found something he didn’t know he was missing. his hands on my hips, then my waist, then pulling my hair a little, not hard, just a grip. he got a hand around my cock while he did it, fisted and slick, keeping time, and the thigh-highs had gone damp at the back of my knees and the skirt was bunched at my waist and my bra was still on. i came over his hand and the marble and my own skirt with my cheek flat on the cold counter, and he said my name (not my real name, the name he’d looked up on the community board, “hollis?”) and then he came, pushed all the way in, his whole body shaking.
he pulled out and got a towel and cleaned me up like i was something precious and then we just stood there in his kitchen, me still in the thigh-highs and the bra and the skirt, and him still in his polo shirt and jeans, and he said, “will you come back?”
“yeah,” i said. “i will.”
he went and got an envelope with seven hundred in cash and put it on the counter and asked, “is this enough for another night? we could—i could—”
“you don’t have to pay me,” i said. which was a stupid thing to say. which was the truest thing i’d said all night.
he smiled like he’d been waiting for me to say that too. like the money was just an excuse, a way to make it real, a way to bridge the gap between the divorced guy with furniture and the broke guy mowing lawns for next month’s beans.
“i want to,” he said. “i want to pay you. come back tomorrow.”
i put the money in my pocket. thigh-highs still on. his bra still on me. there was lube drying on the inside of my thighs, sticky and cold, and i was sore in a way i would feel all the next day every time i sat down, and the waistband of the skirt had left a red line across my stomach. walking the forty feet home and my water bill is paid and my rent is covered and next time i see rick through his window i know exactly what he’s thinking about.
the envelope is still in my glovebox. i haven’t counted it. i already know i’m going back tomorrow.
