Other people

Ten Koslak

I ain't seen the girl around. She must be keeping to herself. Fuck her, I got Mary.

Mary's out, dropping the kids off at her mother's. She likes partyin' better when the kids aren't in the house.

Wonder what's taking Jason so fucking long, he must have a single-pole switch down in the basement somewhere.

I get awful restless just waiting so I called the station. When the kid answers, I said, "Jim, you handle things, I won't be back today. Just remember the pumps show the number of gallons pumped since I left. Don't take the money home with you, ha, ha. Just stash it you know where. Yeah, I hear them honkin'. See ya tomorrow."

The doorbell rings and it's Jason, holding a switch in that left claw and a screwdriver and tape in his right.

"Hi," he says. "Which room?"

"Bathroom," I says.

I really had to get used to him bein' superintendent, you know. It used to be old guys was superintendents, but Jason had to be no more than thirty or so, like a grown-up hippie sort of, a good-looking guy, beard, wears jeans instead of coveralls, and that clamp is really somethin'. I tried to get him to talk about it once or twice. All I learned is that the government paid for it and he works the mechanical arm off straps around his shoulders.

He was taking the old switch out of the wall and I says, "Don't you turn the fuse first?" and he says, "If you do it right, you don't get no shock."

I'm sittin' on the edge of the tub — I mean I'm not going to sit on the pot watching him, am I? — and I say, "Hey, Jason, how come you sometimes wear the arm and sometimes not?"

"That's a very personal question," he says. Then he laughs. Every time that guy laughs I think he must be on somethin', just when he laughs I mean. "My turf," he says, "is two more buildings sides this one. You know how many women in this old parking lot got husbands go to work?"

"Plenty."

"Well, they get put off some, some of them do, by the mechanical thing, it just takes too much of their attention, so when I'm sniffing round the lot for today's pussy, I take it off. You know something?" And he says this like he's telling me the world's number one super-secret. "When I'm naked, they find that stump real attractive. I mean it's healed perfect, and the skin around the end is real smooth and sensitive like the end of a big cock. Some of them ask to feel it, you know. Most people don't understand women, they're much more freaky than people think. And something else. Women want it a lot more than their propaganda lets on. All you got to do is let 'em get past the propaganda, and you're home."

While he was wrapping black plastic tape around the wire where the old cord was frayed, I was sure he was gonna get a shock, but he didn't.

"You get a lot of pussy in these buildings?" I ask.

"You know how many times I get called for the sink's stopped up and it's nothing, or the light won't work when it's just the bulb, and there she is in a housecoat saying thank-you-very-much-don't-you-want-a-cold-drink and I know I've got a new pussy on the block. The old ones don't bother with the jazz, they just call up and say do I got a minute. That minute sometimes takes half an hour. It's a goddamn good thing I don't have a boss looking over my shoulder on this job. He'd wonder where I was sometimes. There."

The plate was back on the box. He flicked the switch. "All set," he says.

I reach in for four bits to tip him and say, "You ever get to the one downstairs?"

"Widmer?"

"Right below."

"That's Widmer. She's not home daytimes. She works."

"You don't play your parking lot on Saturdays and Sundays?"

"It could get tricky. I rest on weekends, except for emergencies like stopped-up toilets and the like."

I went to the fridge and got two beers. "Have a Bud."

"Sure."

"Sit down."

"Don't mind." He plops down on the sofa.

"You ever tried my wife?" I look him in the eye.

"With those little kids around? Sides, she wouldn't give me the time of day, would she?"

I just smile at him. Then I say, "How come you never get any of those women pregnant?"

"Christ, man, where you been? All you needs to do what I do is a vasectomy. It's easier'n pulling a tooth."

"Didn't bother you none?"

"I had to pay for it. I mean I couldn't talk the VA into paying for a vasectomy!" and he laughs that strung-out laugh.

"I'm disappointed," I said.

"About what?"

"That you didn't have a go at Widmer. She's terrific."

"You don't say."

I couldn't tell if he was believing me. If he had a go at Widmer, if she was that available, she couldn't complain about me. I like the way she fought back, just enough, not too much. The next time it'd be easier and quicker.

Jason was just finishing the Bud when the key turns in the door and Mary comes in. Jason starts to get up. I say, "You know Jason, Mary," and she says, "Sure," and I say, "What do you mean sure?" and she says, "He's the super, ain't he?"

Mary vanishes into the kitchen and Jason says, "I got to go."

"Hey, Mary," I yell, "kids gonna be at Grandma's rest of the afternoon?"

She comes in, drying her hands, and says, "Till six. Wasn't that what you…"

"Yeah," I says quickly. "Hey, want to see what Jason did?"

I take her by the arm into the John and say, "Jason put that wall switch in without the fuse being off."

"Really?" she says, not knowing what is going on.

"Hey Jason," I yell into the living room, "Mary said she was gonna take a shower soon's she got home. Want another Bud? Help yourself in the fridge." That's when I'm just behind Mary and butt her from behind. She has got a very sensitive ass, let me tell you. If I come up behind her and just squiggle a little…

When I walked in the door and saw Jason I could a died. I immediately thought Harry's found out and there's been a scene. Harry would kill him if he knew, wouldn't he, but Jason'd said nobody ever really knows unless they actually see you doing it. They're just sitting around beering, but my heart, I tell you, was like bongo drums.

Jason is the most sensitive love-maker. There isn't a part of your body he doesn't touch and kiss first. Not like Harry.

I put my hands around on Mary's tits while I got her from behind and she says, "He'll see," in a kind of whisper. And Jason comes out of the kitchen with two Buds, one in the claw, and he sees all right, which is what I intended.

"Okay," I say in an extra loud voice, "you can take your shower now."

I mean what can Mary do? I try to imagine what's going on in her mind, but she does like I want and starts takin' her things and hanging them behind the bathroom door while I stand on the sill with my back to her so she can't close the door completely. Or lock it. Jason brings me the beer, looking funny.

"I gotta go now," he says.

"You don't want to walk around with a full bottle of beer. Afterwards."

I say the "afterwards" in a special voice, hoping he catches something from it.

I can hear the water running so I turn and look because I know that Mary always stands outside the tub mixing the hot and cold in the tub part before she switches the water to the shower and gets in. She's bending over, looking terrific, and I say, "Ha, ha, I think I'd better take a shower, too," and I take a swig of the Bud and put the bottle down next to the wall so it don't get knocked over by accident. I kick off my moccasins and pull my socks off because Mary laughs at me if she sets me with socks on after I'm undressed. It's a habit with me to start at the bottom, so I slip my pants and boxers off and throw them on the couch where Jason is sitting down. Men don't pay as much attention to the angle of my cock the way women do, that's my belief, and I wasn't bothered by Jason's staring just a second before he turned away.

I unbutton my shirt because it's funny standing there like that, you're more naked with a shirt on, aren't you? I pull the undershirt off and say to Jason, turning my back to him for politeness, "I guess it's shower time for me, too. Why don't you join us?"

I turned because I wanted to catch the expression in his face just then, but I missed it because he had the Bud bottle up and gulping as if to pretend he didn't see nothin'. Well, I'm into the bathroom, she's got the shower curtain pulled, and I pull it back a bit and say, "Soap, ma-dame?" and she points a finger hard in the direction of the open door, and then down at my stand-up situation. I just shrug my shoulders as if everything is just normal, right, casual, but I poke my head around the door just to see, and there's Jason with his shirt off, taking the straps from around his shoulder, removing the arm, and laying it on the coffee table. I don't know, that was a real turn-on to see.

I pull the curtain back — I don't give a damn if the bathroom floor gets wet — and I climb in. I take the soap and lather up in my hands and then smear the lather all over Mary's tits, and she's saying kind of desperately, "Shut the bathroom door," and I pretend I don't understand, so she points fiercely like, and I just put my arms around her, but she's tight as hell, blushing, but I know nothin' is going to stop this now unless Jason chickens, which he doesn't, because there he is, standing in the bathroom door, naked as a bird, with three heads of hair, on his head, on his chin, and a bush just above where his shlong hangs down. I can see what he means about the shiny end of his stump when the apparatus is off. "Plenty of room in here," I yell. I'm having one helluva good time just anticipating.

I motion to Jason and he steps into the tub. It's pretty hard not touchin', three people standing up in one ordinary-sized tub, and I say to Mary, "Don't mind his arm, he says women find it sexy." I swear Mary looks like she's gonna have a heart attack or something, so I kiss her wet lips and say, "Look at his poor shlong, why don't you touch it for encouragement," and she grabs her right hand with her left as if to lock it back, and I say, "All you got to do is like this," and I put my soapy hand on Jason's you-know-what. For a second, he twitches back like he was stung, saying, "Hey what are you doin'," and so I say, "Just partyin', right?" and I take Mary's wrist firm and put her hand on Jason. She tries not to move her hand, which is pretty hard considerin' how we're all tryin' to keep from slipping, and I notice his thing is activating fast, and I'm excited, I tell you, saying, "Whoo, this is a party all right," and "Who's gonna do what next?" and Jason, he moves around me and caresses Mary's arm, I mean long strokes from her shoulder to her wrist, all with the one hand, and then her other arm, and then like some Oriental he sits down in the tub cross-legged and does the same feel thing down her one thigh and leg and then the other. I never seen a technique like that, I mean I usually go for the box right off, but I notice that Mary is not tight the way she was, she is liking all that smoothin'. "Can I do that?" I says, not waiting, and I do the same thing on her arms and legs and I'll be damned if Mary is looking like, well, terrific, and she takes each of our dongs, one in each hand, and starts stroking. I feel my nuts come up and tighten like I'm ready, but Jason stops her, and I want to know what he's stopping her for, and he says, "She's not ready," and then he gets in position and starts kissing and lickin' and sucking her like he knew what he was doing, which he must have, because I see Mary start to shake and suddenly she's ooh, aah, ooh, and pushing his head away as she hangs on to the towel bar, coming like it was the end of the world.

It was somethin' to see, I tell you. When she's finished, her head flops forward exhausted, and we both ease her down into the tub, where we're all tangled up good, laughing cause the shower is still coming down on us. I turn it off, careful to turn both handles at the same time so no one gets scalded or ice water on them, and then she finishes him off and then me, one of the best times I ever had in my life.