Bang Up Read online

  "I accept her. I'd just like to accept her more."

  "Sorry, I'm not your guy. And no other guy is your guy. There are no guys for that job. I would like to thank you for the cookies, though."

  "You're welcome. Could you tell that they weren't gluten free?"

  "I sure could. I'm going to need you to let go of my arm."

  Agatha released her grip. "The Pride parades are lively. I suppose there's that."

  Kirk realized to his horror that Julie had left the room. Shit! He couldn't tell Ralph that he failed in his mission just because some old lady skeeved him out!

  He hurried out of the room and nearly collided with Julie, who'd been standing right outside the door. "Sorry," he said.

  She smiled. "In a rush? Too much fruit punch?"

  "Just fleeing the awkwardness."

  "It was sweet of you to not try to convert that poor lesbian."

  "That was crazy, huh?"

  "Would you like to go get dinner?" Julie asked. "My treat."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I would like to have dinner with you tonight, and I'm offering to pay for your meal."

  "That's what I thought you said. Took me a moment to process it. Yes, I'd love that."

  "Great! And you don't have to convert me."

  5

  When thinking about how things might play out this evening, Kirk really hadn't envisioned a scenario in which Julie asked him out on a date, without any wooing on his part. He'd expected to have to work a bit harder.

  Maybe Ralph was right to think that she was aggressively seeking a sexual partner. A pathetic encounter with Kirk might not be enough to get her off the warpath. Ralph might have to bribe a whole series of men into clumsily banging her.

  They drove separately to a high-end sushi restaurant. If Kirk wasn't mistaken, sushi was considered a sexy food. He wasn't sure if he could eat sashimi in a way that successfully conveyed the message, "I'll totally go down on you," but he'd definitely give it a try.

  As Julie greeted him at the restaurant entrance with a quick hug, he was pretty sure she'd undone at least two buttons on her black blouse. This blouse was already being asked to do work beyond its job description, and the remaining buttons might not be up for the task of containment. It was going to be a challenge for Kirk to not be constantly cognizant of the existence of her breasts.

  The hostess seated them in a dark corner table. She offered a drink menu, but Julie waved it away and ordered sake for both of them.

  "I'm married," she told Kirk. "Are you okay with that?"

  "You mean marriage in general, or...?"

  "Me being married while we're on a date that may end in sex."

  Kirk stared at her for a moment. And then for another moment.

  "So, this is a date?"

  Kirk had no idea what was going on with his mouth and brain. Women did not typically turn him into a babbling idiot. Things were going astoundingly well; she'd made the first move and she was making it very clear that she wasn't simply interested in him for his literature opinions. Perhaps at the end of the night she'd cross her legs and say, "No, no, no, none for you!" but right now it seemed that Kirk simply needed to not come off like a complete jackass.

  Therefore, it was important that he not say dumb shit like "Is this a date?" and instead project the confidence of a man who knew what both of them wanted.

  Julie shrugged. "It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be. We can always go Dutch treat."

  "No, no, I'm more than happy to call this a date," said Kirk. "And it doesn't bother me that you're married. I can keep a secret."

  "Have you slept with a married woman before?"

  "Not knowingly. I guess there's been the occasional tan line on a ring finger."

  "So how long have you been lying about being a firefighter?"

  Kirk decided not to bother trying to stick to his story. "What gave it away?"

  "A little of everything."

  "This evening was the first time I used that particular lie. I'll take it out of the rotation."

  "That's probably a good idea. So what do you really do for a living?"

  Lie, you fool, lie! "I'm a cowboy."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Really."

  "In Atlanta?"

  "I live in Montana. I'm here on vacation. I can rope a steer, believe me."

  Julie smiled. "So you're good with knots?"

  "I sure am," said Kirk. "I'm not sure if you're still talking about roping steers or if you've moved on to bedroom stuff, but, yes, I'm good with knots."

  "I wasn't talking about roping steers. I was talking about sexual bondage."

  "Cool."

  "Let me see your hands."

  "Why?"

  "I want to see if you have cowboy hands."

  "I wear gloves when I'm working."

  "Let me see your hands, or they don't get to touch anything but chopsticks."

  Kirk held out his hands. Julie took them in her own and inspected them like a palm reader.

  "Nope, not the hands of a cowboy," she said.

  "What are they the hands of?"

  "Hmm." Julie looked at them more closely. "As far as I can tell, these are the delicate fingers of somebody who spends his days applying moisturizer to his hands."

  Kirk chuckled. "Very funny."

  "Seriously, what do you do? Be honest. I'm after your body, not your wallet."

  For a split second, Kirk considered telling the truth, and then he decided that telling the truth was a ridiculous idea and lied. "I'm an office manager. Very boring stuff. Way too many spreadsheets."

  Julie let go of his hands. "Tell me about your girlfriend."

  "She's not really my girlfriend. We're just friends."

  "With benefits?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you do actual friend stuff or do you just have sex?"

  "We do friend stuff," Kirk said. "I mean, we watch TV every once in a while. I drove her to the airport once."

  "Do you ever hang out with her without having sex with her?"

  Kirk tried to think of an example. Myra had given him a blowjob during the drive to the airport, so that didn't count. "Not on purpose."

  "What does that mean?"

  "One time she came over with some Buffalo wings, and we both got food poisoning. We stopped being in the mood for sex when the puking started."

  Actually, they'd gotten the food poisoning from sushi, but Kirk wasn't dumb enough to share that part, considering that they were currently about to dine on sushi. He did wish he'd omitted the puking. It was understood. He didn't need to bring it to the forefront of the story.

  "Do you get your sex from any other sources?" Julie asked.

  "Occasionally. But I'm not some feral man-whore. What's happening between us right now isn't normal for me. I'd expected to sleep alone."

  "You're still sleeping alone. I won't be able to stay over."

  "Understood. Am I allowed to ask about your husband?"

  "Not if you want me to stay frisky."

  "Gotcha."

  "He's fine. I'm with you now because I want to enhance my sex life, not replace it. You probably won't believe me because I've come off like such a rabid horndog since we met, but I've always been faithful to him. This is my first time doing anything like this."

  "I'm honored."

  "It's not you. It's the timing."

  "Oh. Well, I'm glad I was in the right place at the right time."

  "Me too."

  The server arrived with their sake and they realized that they hadn't made any decisions about their sushi order. "Do you need a couple more minutes?" the server asked.

  Julie looked at Kirk. "Will you feel ripped off if we skip food and leave after these drinks?"

  "I'd be okay with that," said Kirk.

  They didn't even finish the drinks.

  6

  The hotel was a couple of miles away from the restaurant. By Kirk's standards, a "nice" hotel meant that the rats were already dead whe
n you found them, but Ralph had directed him to a hotel where the only STD's you might catch from the bedding belonged to your partner.

  Instead of going with the fumigating story, Kirk told her that his apartment had just been painted and that the fumes were too noxious for a sexual romp. She asked him what color, and he said light blue without having to stop to think of a credible sounding hue. This answer seemed to satisfy her.

  They drove separately to the hotel, probably because Kirk hadn't yet provided Julie with enough data points to prove that he wasn't a serial killer. They went inside and up to the front desk.

  "We'd like a room," he told the clerk.

  The clerk nodded. "Would you prefer a king or two doubles?"

  "Do we look like we're here for separate beds?" asked Julie.

  "A king it is."

  "Do you have a room with a sex swing?"

  "I'm afraid we do not."

  "We'd like to be in an area where people aren't going to make noise complaints."

  "I can put you on the fourth floor. Families with young children prefer to be closer to the pool."

  Kirk was surprised by Julie's lack of discretion. It wasn't as if the hotel clerk was going to give Ralph a call and say "Guess what yooooour wife is doing?" but most people who were cheating on their spouses for the first time were less inclined to openly discuss the matter.

  She did let him pay for the room. He supposed that a sushi meal could be easily explained if Ralph reviewed her credit card statements, but that a hotel room would require a more creative answer.

  They went up to room 414. The card reader worked on the first try, which was not something Kirk had ever experienced. They opened the door and went inside. Julie put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign and closed the door behind them.

  "Well," said Kirk.

  "This is going to be so much fun," said Julie, walking over and setting her purse on the nightstand. "I'm really looking forward to it. I'm practically giddy. Thank you so much for showing up at that book club today. I can't tell you how much I need this."

  "Glad to help out."

  She walked back over to Kirk, put her arms around him, and kissed him on the lips. He returned the kiss: full, deep, hungry. She slid her tongue into his mouth as she moaned with pleasure.

  Shit! She wasn't supposed to be moaning with pleasure!

  They continued kissing as they slowly backed toward the bed, moving completely in synch. Kirk felt himself already getting hard.

  No! No erections! This was emphatically not supposed to be a hot and passionate experience!

  He tried to tilt his head a bit, so that they'd be kissing at a slightly awkward angle, but she tilted her own head to match and the kissing wasn't even the slightest bit awkward. It was amazing. Kirk had kissed many women, but he'd never felt this kind of fire. He could lose himself forever in her kisses.

  Asshole! You can't lose yourself forever in her kisses! Focus, dammit! Remember why you're here!

  Okay, he didn't necessarily need to start the incompetence right away. There was nothing wrong with enjoying some pleasant smooching for a couple of minutes before he enacted the plan. Ralph would never know. If the kissing didn't go well, Julie might decide that this was a bad idea and leave. It was in the best interest of the mission for the kissing to be awesome, and then he could kickoff the ineptitude after their clothing had been shed.

  Yes, that made perfect sense. That should have been the plan from the very beginning.

  Their kissing intensified. Julie ran her fingers through the back of his hair. Kirk was fully erect, wishing he'd wore looser pants, and Julie pressed herself against him.

  She opened her eyes, pulled away from his lips, and smiled. "It feels like I'm about to become a very lucky woman."

  Kirk didn't reply. He didn't want to sound egotistical by acknowledging that, yeah, he had a pretty big dick.

  After taking a moment to remove their shoes, they resumed kissing as they backed all the way to the bed. It would've been nice if Julie smacked into the bed and yelped in pain, but no, she stopped at the exact right moment, even though her eyes were closed again and she was moving backwards. He pushed her onto the mattress, then climbed on top of her and kissed her some more.

  He didn't want this sexual encounter to be complete crap! He wanted them to make intense love all night and wake up in each other's arms.

  Tough shit. That wasn't why he was here. He had a job to do. Ralph wasn't paying him a thousand bucks to make Julie feel good. Kirk needed to start doing things badly before he got completely caught up in this experience and gave her ecstasy that he'd regret.

  They kissed for a while longer. Then he moved away and began to nibble on her ear.

  Bite too hard. Bite too hard.

  He couldn't make his teeth clench down. If she recoiled in pain, she could accidentally rip her ear off in his mouth, which was far outside of the scope of unsatisfying sex. He stuck to sensual nibbling.

  Kirk reached for her clothed breast, trying to clumsily slap it, but his hand landed perfectly and he gave it a gentle squeeze that, he could tell, sent a shiver of pleasure through her body.

  He grabbed her blouse with both hands. He was going to tear it open, but purposely use insufficient force the first couple of times, so that he looked like the kind of ridiculous dumbass who couldn't tear open a woman's blouse in the heat of passion. And when he finally did get it open, he hoped she'd be pissed that he ripped her blouse. It looked expensive.

  Maybe it was expensive, but it certainly wasn't sturdy. Even though he didn't tug very hard, the blouse came all the way open on the first try. Several buttons popped off. One flew directly at Kirk's face...and he caught it in his mouth.

  "Holy shit!" said Julie.

  Kirk spat the button off the side of the bed. "Sorry."

  "That was amazing! We should've been recording that! Nobody would ever believe it!"

  Kirk wasn't sure he believed it, either. If he ripped a thousand flimsy blouses off a thousand horny wives, he couldn't make that button pop right into his mouth again. Now he almost looked like a sexual magician. He'd even spat out the button in a suave manner. He should've let it slowly fall from his mouth in a line of drool.

  Julie sat up and slipped out of her blouse. She wore a white lacy bra. Kirk was not an expert on women's fashion, but he did know that there were bras you wore when you were hoping to be seductive, and bras you wore when you just wanted to keep your boobs reigned in. This seemed very much like the former. Though it certainly wasn't something he could read into too much, it did seem as if Julie had been hoping to end up in a hotel room with somebody tonight.

  She raised her hands over her head. The message was clear: time to take this thing off, stud.

  A perfect opportunity for failure. Kirk was a skilled lover but the bra-removal process still slipped him up on occasion. He'd make sure to fumble around for a couple of minutes. He sat up, then reached around her with both hands. She leaned into him, pressing her glorious breasts against his chest. He could feel her firm nipples through the fabric. He gently pulled on the straps and they came apart.

  What the hell...?

  Since when did a bra just effortlessly open in the back? It was supposed to be a challenge. This task was meant to separate the inexperienced and clumsy from the experienced and dexterous. Was this some sort of new brassiere, patent pending, that represented a bold step forward in undergarment removal technology? The bra looked new, but maybe it was an old one that she'd worn so many times that the clasps barely held together anymore.

  The bra fell away, revealing the finest breasts he'd ever personally viewed. They were spectacular. Flawless. If Kirk could sit down and design his dream breast, from the overall size (large but not freakishly large) to the diameter of the aureole, this would be it. Kirk wasn't fussy in matters related to the female bosom; he liked them large or small, natural or silicone-enhanced, firm or soft, pierced or unadorned, and in whatever roundish shapes were available. He'd never seen a
pair that made him go, "Nope, not for me." But Julie's were beyond anything he could have ever imagined.

  He just gaped at them.

  "You like?" she asked.

  "Uh...huh," he said, barely able to enunciate the words, even though "uh-huh" wasn't something that required precise enunciation. Good. This was good. Maybe she'd be turned off by him sounding like a Neanderthal.

  Julie giggled. "At a loss for words?"

  Kirk nodded.

  Julie giggled again. Fuck. She found this endearing. This was going horribly.

  "It's okay," said Julie. "You can touch."

  Kirk wasn't certain that he should. Having those perfect breasts in his hands might shatter his resolve to achieve Ralph's goal. If he touched them, he'd want to squeeze them lovingly, gaze into her eyes as he teased the nipples with his thumbs. What was he supposed to do?

  He cupped her breasts in his hands. They felt even better than they looked.

  He kneaded them as he and Julie kissed. This was frickin' paradise.

  Do your job. Now.

  Kirk pinched her right nipple.

  "Oooh, do that a little harder," said Julie.

  Damn. Of course she was into having her nipples pinched. Why wouldn't she be? Fine. Kirk would refuse to pinch it harder. Frustrate her.

  Instead, he took her nipple into his mouth, which, from an "unsatisfying sex" standpoint, was not an improvement.

  7

  Kirk loved hearing Julie moan as he licked her left breast while caressing the right. She was wonderfully, astonishingly responsive, and he decided to just enjoy the experience for a while. He moved his tongue in quick circles around her nipple, then went lower and slid his tongue along the underside of her breast. After sufficiently covering that territory, he switched to the underside of her other breast, eventually moving upward and nuzzling, kissing and licking that nipple as well. She had perfect nipples. Kirk hadn't even known that he had such a strong opinion about nipples, but these were what future geneticists should use when creating the ideal female specimen.