Page 17 of Creepy
“Thanks, but no thanks.”I turned into him, putting my hands on his chest.Our eyes met.
His lips parted as he was about to say something.Damn.He was beautiful.Warm breath hitting me, he hesitated.His hand went to stroke my hair.“How about dinner?”
Clearly, something was going on here.Absolutely not my type, Surfer dude was making me blush.“Not tonight.”Then I thought about Troy, the ballplayer, I’d blown him off and nearly got him killed.“A raincheck?”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Sure.I’ll make you dinner tomorrow.”I checked to make sure he was wearing a watch.Taking his wrist, I read it, noticing it was hours off.Turning the tiny wheel, I set it.“Be there at five, central time.”
Having a date, I practically skipped home.Too bad I had another surprise waiting on my doorstep when I arrived.Dillon glared up at me.He held the radio I’d left on the back porch between his knees.“Where’ve you been?”
“Not far...”What was he doing here?I squinted my eyes in confusion.
He stood and stretched.“I told you I’d be back.”
“I thought you said you were heading back.”
He handed me my radio.“Poor connection.Said, my crew headed back.”
“Y’all find anyone?”
“Nah.But I just realized I didn’t check the end of your lane.”He started toward his motorcycle.
Thinking fast, I said, “I just did.”I twirled the radio and shoved it in my backpack, all nonchalant.“No sign of anyone at the Jules’ Estate either.”
“Good.So, it’s only you and me.”He came back to the porch.“I’m due for a payment.”
“I’m due for a bath.”Hot from my oh-so-easy encounter with Arlo, it would be a cold one.
“Me, too.We can kill two birds with one stone.”
“But...”I began to say, it wasn’t Monday, then I remembered I was having dinner with Arlo tomorrow on Monday.So stupid of me not to realize.I’d have to get rid of Dillon tonight.“I’m taking a bath first,” I told him.And afterward, I thought.
“I’ll join you.”Dillon followed me into the house.
I lit some candles.“Yeah, right.You can wait here,” I said, motioning to the living room.I shooed him to the couch and went to grab my bucket from the kitchen.
“Seriously, Sissy, let me help you.”Dillon had followed me through the dark.He stole the bucket from my hands.“I’ll fetch some water.You go get undressed.”
Either way, I’d have to get my payment over with.Picking up the candles, I took them to the bathroom.The small room lit up too much.I blew one of them out.That was better.Any other time, I’d think about how sex with my ex-fiancé, blackmailed sex with him wasn’t the worse thing in the world now that it’d pretty much ended, but meeting two eligible bachelors changed my perspective.The prospect of people in fact coming back to Creepy and life returning to some semblance of normal was not conceivable to me just last week.Although Dillon had warned me.Having second thoughts about our arrangement, I thought of ways to get out of it.I could tell him I was on the rag.No, I’d already done that two weeks ago.
Reluctantly, I disrobed.Watching my body in the mirror, I noticed all the ways the days of hard work had made me more attractive.My arms and legs’ toned muscles danced as I moved.My midsection, tiny and flat, sported a four-pack.All my voluptuous bits were even more so thanks to the muscle underneath.Nice as it was, I didn’t feel this body belonged to me.I would’ve never worked hard just to achieve it.It was as if my face had been photoshopped onto an Instagram model who cared about her looks.It was alien.I was the body snatcher.A shame there’s no man to appreciate it.Besides Dillon, and he didn’t deserve it.Before the epidemic, I’d not had the confidence to date many men.But who knows what I would’ve done with a body like this?
Probably been a whore.
Since then, there had been no men to choose from.You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, YOLO and all.Recalling the look on Arlo’s face when I’d placed my hands on his chest made me almost convulse.Damn, I was easy.
Dillon returned with a bucket of rainwater in one hand and the pot I’d used to can tomato sauce cradled against him.“This water good?”He asked.
“Yeah, it’s clean too.”I hadn’t thought about bathing in my canning water.Once it cooled, I always drank some, saved some to wash up my evening dinner, and brushed my teeth.I’d usually heat some more to bathe.Thinking of Arlo, I told Dillon to get naked.I didn’t have to tell him twice.“You wash me, I’ll wash you.”
He wasn’t expecting that.“I like that idea.”
Once he was naked, he positioned himself beside me in the mirror.“Look at us.Who’d have thought we both survived?”
“You look like a mountain man with that beard.”
“You don’t like it?”Dillon rubbed it and tugged it down.“Look at your body, Sissy.You could’ve been a model with that body.But I liked you softer.”
