Mark Dunn - American Decameron

She looked nothing like my wife, and suddenly I felt guilty. Guilty for looking. Guilty for entertaining thoughts that — let’s be honest here — I really had no control over.

So this is what rich young women wear when they’re lounging around the house, I thought. The only thing missing was bonbons!

I pulled my eyes from her long enough to notice that Jake was looking at her too. Jake’s gaze was especially noticeable since he’s crosseyed.

“It looks like you’re doing a fine job,” said the lady of the house, in that distinct northern Louisiana drawl that I’d been familiar with since birth. “Do you put the bricks in today?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jake and me together, and then I gave Jake a look that said, “I’m the boss here. I’ll talk to the woman. You can just keep quiet.”

“We got the sand smoothed down and we’re ready to lay in the pavers,” I went on.

“What are pavers?”

“That would be the brick, ma’am,” Jake replied, winking at me insubordinately.

“Oh, I hated the old patio that was here before. I was afraid one of our guests might come out here and trip on the broken stones.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re getting it replaced,” I said.

“Well, you’ve got a warm day for it. The weatherman says it’s getting up into the eighties this afternoon. Now, you boys just give a knock at that door if you need anything. Callie said the two of you got pretty thirsty yesterday.”

“We did, ma’am,” said Jake, whose eyes were still fixed on the stunning Mrs. Badeaux. I’m sure I was ogling her just as much as he was, but I was doing it a little more subtly.

Jake is constitutionally incapable of being subtle. He’s a hard worker and that’s why I keep him on, but his life has largely been driven by his various appetites: sex, food, beer, the Saints, and the LSU Tigers (which he calls the “Bengals” after their nickname, the “Bayou Bengals”), and all of it pretty much in that order.

It’s always been hard, during our long side-by-side workdays, to talk to Jake about anything other than the above. He doesn’t even know the name of the vice president or either of our two United States senators, although both men are Shreveport natives. And his obsession with the Tigers and his hatred for their in-state rival, Tulane, got old after our first week together.

“Green Wave. You gotta be fucking kidding. Who’d name their team after water , for fuck’s sake?”

By eight thirty Jake and I had staked the retaining edge in place and had started to position the pavers. Jake was pulling the wet saw down from the bed of the truck when Mrs. Badeaux came out “to see how things were going.” The scarf was gone, both from her neck and her head. Its absence displayed a mane of luxurious soft blond hair and a smooth, luscious, lightly tanned neck that wanted badly to be kissed and caressed. Jake fumbled with the wet saw and nearly dropped it. His mouth was open in a slight gape — a look that didn’t flatter him and probably gave one the impression of a lascivious, crosseyed, mentally retarded man.

“Oh,” she said. “So that’s how you do it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

“I was going to make me an egg sandwich. Would either of you boys like an egg sandwich?” As Mrs. Badeaux said this, the first two fingers of her right hand seemed to be diddling, absentmindedly, the nodule of her left nipple. “And coffee? Would you like coffee too?”

All that I could get out was “Yes.”

“Me too,” called Jake, half-slobbering, from the driveway.

After Mrs. Badeaux had gone inside, Jake ran over to me and said in an urgent whisper, “Why was she twiddling her titty like that?”

“You could see that all the way from the truck?” I whispered back. “With that Clarence-the-Crosseyed-Lion eyesight of yours?”

“It don’t take perfect eyesight to take notice when a pretty woman fingers her zoom, Cortner.”

I took a deep breath. “We need to get a hold of ourselves. I’m a married man and you’re — just what are you, Jake? Has the divorce gone through?”

“Not yet.”

“Then technically you’re still a married man too.”

“And technically, you’d be an idiot, Cortner, to think I gotta have that decree in my hand to make a move on any woman of my choosing.”

“You make a move on Mrs. Badeaux, Jake, and you’re fired. You’re more than fired. I’ll make sure that nobody in town ever hires you. I’m starting to get the feeling that Mrs. Badeaux is one of those lonely housewives who isn’t getting enough from her husband.”

“Well, hell, Cortner! With a Buddha-bellied, squirrel-faced mari like Badeaux, do you blame her?”

“You heard me, Jake. Now get your mind off Mrs. Badeaux. Tell me about that game against the Gators last Saturday.”

When Mrs. Badeaux brought out our egg sandwiches and cups of coffee, another item of apparel was missing from her blueberry ensemble. The sash was gone, and her shoes as well (I hardly ever notice a woman’s shoes; I’m always too busy taking in everything else). Mrs. Badeaux was totally barefoot, her toenails painted hot pink. Without the sash, she looked even more like a gypsy, the dress flowing every which way. She directed us to the gazebo and served us there.

As we were eating — or trying to eat — she stood nearby and talked about some of the ideas she had for landscaping the large backyard. “Henry loves it that I’m inclined that way, though I wish he’d care a little more about how this place looks. It’s been in his family for four generations, you know.” And then, apropos of nothing she’d just said, Mrs. Badeaux pressed two fingers against her lips with a coquette’s tease, and then trailed her fingers down her chin and farther south between her breasts, finally withdrawing them just above the land of unearthly delights.

Then she excused herself and went back inside, her floating stride across the green lawn sensuously mesmerizing. Jake and I sat for a moment in a state of suspended animation. I finally found my voice to say, “Something’s going on here. I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t even know if we should finish the job.”

“There’s no harm in looking, Cortner. She’s playing a game. I want to play. I won’t touch her. And we’ll both hightail it out of here, no problem, if she decides to make a move on either of us. I’m just saying—”

“I know what you’re saying. But I’m weak. And I know that you’re even weaker than I am.”

“It’s a game , Cortner. We won’t let her win. But for fuck’s sake, let’s play!”

We kept playing.

At about nine forty-five, Mrs. Badeaux returned to offer us lemonade on a tray. The blueberry gypsy lounging attire was gone. Now she was wearing a pleated skirt that came up high, like cheerleaders used to wear, and a halter top that looked like the kind of tit-sling that sluts wear. It was a very different look — slightly schoolgirl, mostly trailer-park trash. The purpose here, I suppose, was to share with us an exposed midriff that seemed both taut and touchably soft — nothing at all like my wife Theresa’s abdominal Michelin pudge, of which she was extremely self-conscious, because it didn’t used to be there, but appeared as we both passed the forty mark and my own paunch coincidentally became more pronounced.

“I know what’s going on,” said Jake after she’d gone back inside. He was so excited that he could hardly get the words out. “She’s doing a striptease.”

“Strippers don’t generally change clothes in the middle of their act.”

“Well, there wasn’t much under that blue dress. She wasn’t even wearing a bra, far as I could tell. You could see the outline of her hard kernels.”