Carla Hadim - Wild And Willing

He fished in his pocket for a dime but found only two fifty-dollar bills and three twenties. And two cents.

When he realized that he did not even have anything as useful as a dime, he knew he had to see Jane. She was coldly practical and could tell him if he was really being stupid or not. And she had those fine uneven tits that he wanted to feel again. He did not want to treat her as shabbily as he had treated Linda Long. He wanted to do something nice for someone, at last, and he wanted it to turn out nice for him too. If he would go to the party Jane had invited him to, which happened to be tonight, he probably could get into her again and he could feel already the tight way she pumped the muscles in her vagina. He wanted to kiss her smooth, glassy stomach and slide his fingers across her firm little ass that had not yet fallen down around her rear thighs.

He heard a car approaching around the turn. When the lights appeared, flashing through the beach brush, Rick stepped to the edge of the road and waved. The car speeded up, passed by, and kept going.

Rick then remembered that sometimes dimes were returned in pay phones and people neglected to pick them up. He hurried to the booth and checked the return slot but it was empty.

He was stuck. He had nothing to do except return to the resort, and he would have to pass Mrs. Witherdine's house and he might just as well turn in at her back door and walk dutifully up the back stairs, following Marie, and when they were alone he could plunge up to his balls into the old lady and he could make himself come by imagining it was Jenny's cunt instead. Right now, he imagined, Jenny was snuggled up to her teddy bear in some frilly bed. He thought he might be able to fuck the great-aunt if he could persuade himself in the dark that it was the grand-niece.

Just as he started walking he heard another car. He stood in the middle of the road, waving his arms. The lights picked him up, hurt his eyes, but he refused to budge and the car slowed down, braked, and stopped.

Trying to appear harmless and innocent, Rick walked to the driver's window. Inside, a woman, driving alone, looked middle-aged and frightened.

"What is it?" she asked, worried. "An accident?" Her voice was full of hope that someone else had had bad luck and she herself would not be raped.

"Not an accident," Rick said. He hoped the woman would not be startled and run over his feet trying to escape. "I only need a dime. I need to call a friend and I'm stuck without a dime."

"You need money?" she asked, still frightened.

"No, no. Just a dime. For the phone, Ma'am."

The "ma'am" seemed to win her over. It was as if she had been waiting to see if Rick had manners or not. She suddenly became alert, moved quickly, found her purse on the seat beside her and opened it up.

"A dime," she laughed. "Is that all? Just a dime?"

"That's all," he said.

The woman looked at him again. Her hands kept working around in her purse, searching for the small thin coin, but her eyes looked out at Rick, and down his frame.

"You smell nice," she said. She found the dime and closed her purse, but she did not give it to Rick.

"Thank you," Rick said, cursing Mrs. Simpson and her damn imported soap.

"Have a big date?"

"Uh, yes. A date, that's right."

She held the dime out the window finally and when Rick tried to take it she held onto it a second too long. He was afraid he would have to jerk it out of her fingers. He tugged a little, and she held on.

"Is it a date you have to make? Or do you think you could break it?"

"No," he said, knowing now what the woman's problem was. She had been alone too long, or was divorced, or her husband was sleeping too soundly after too many gin-and-tonics. She was restless, crawly down between her legs. "I have to make the date. Sorry," he added.

She released the dime, rather sadly. "I'll wait here," she said, "in case your girl is not at home."

Rick stepped into the phone booth. "Okay," he called back. "Be a good idea."

He slid the dime in the slot, heard its magical clinking of freedom, and dialed Jane's number.

Like a miracle, she answered. "Hi," he said. "What are you doing?"

"Is that you, Rick?"

"It's me."

"I don't believe it."

"It's me."

"Where?"

"Phone booth, at the junction."

"What are you doing there?"

"Calling you. You doing anything?'

"As a matter-of-fact,. I am. Why are you trying to call me up when I haven't heard from you for a month."

Rick looked out the glass window at the woman who still waited in her car. He said, "Hey, I can't kid around all night, I only had one dime and I had to beg for it. Isn't this the night of that big party you told me about when we were on the boat?"

"That's what I'm doing tonight, I'm going to it."

"Yeah, well, that's what I'm calling you about." He paused a moment, then for a second he was afraid she had hung up on him, or they had gotten disconnected somehow. Then he heard her breathing into the other end as if she was still mad. "I don't blame you for being sore, but I'm really stuck tonight, out here in the middle of nowhere, and I want to see you very much and I'd like to go to that party with you."

"You liar," she said.

"Well, if you won't talk to me, I may as well hang up."

She laughed. He liked the sound of her laughter. It was young, and full of spunk. Tinkly, joyful, the sound of a happy girl with her whole life ahead of her.

He said, "Will you pick me up? Hey, will you, I'm lonesome?"

She teased him. "Don't you have a date tonight? Couldn't you line up one of your benefactresses tonight? Having an off night? Got your period, or something?"

"I'll tell you all about it. Listen, Jane, it's not what it's cracked up to be. Come on over here and pick me up and I'll let you in on the secret."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

Rick hung up the phone without saying anything more. He knew if he talked too long he might only make her mad and she might refuse to come for him. He walked back to the car.

The woman said, "I guess she was home."

Rick nodded. "She'll be by to pick me up right away. Maybe," he suggested, "we could make it another night?"

The woman started her car. "Sorry, buddy, tonight was your night."

She drove away. Her tail lights looked like red cat's eyes, laughing at him, diminishing in the dark.

Jane's first question after Rick slid into her car was, "How is the easy life going?"

Rick looked at her a long time. She had made wonderful love with hind on the sailboat, but he had not called her since or made any effort to get in touch with her. She had become another Linda in his life. He thought he would like to make it up to her, in some way, and perhaps by making it up to Jane he could also ease his conscience somewhat about Linda, far away now but still nagging in the back of his mind. "It's going great," he lied. "I'm making a fortune and there's nothing to it."

As Jane drove along the narrow road, she laughed at him. "What were you doing out here at the junction this time of night? You know, life isn't as easy as you make believe it is."

He acted surprised. "You mean that?"

"Come on, Rick. Anybody can see right through you. You're having a miserable time. You're not fun anymore."

"I've gotten serious," he said, not knowing what else to say. "I've settled down to a career."

"If it's so great, how come you didn't rescue me from a life of setting tables and clearing dirty dishes? I had the impression that as soon as you got organized with the ladies you were. going to find a few that wanted a little female companionship, or maybe a threesome."

He looked at her a long time, trying to decide whether or not she was serious. He decided that she was kidding, that she knew what a lousy summer Rick had gotten himself into and that she wanted no part of it. A long sigh escaped his lungs as if he were an old pioneer who found it hopeless to explain to the youngsters exactly how it used to be in the old days.