Summer Swap 4.8

Byron didn’t know how Carla got the door open without him noticing, but she did, pressing forward now, breasts first, backing him into the open room.

“Carla, what are you doing?”

“You make it sound like I’m seducing you,” she said.

“You are.”

She closed the door and put her back against it, blocking his only escape.

They were in was a bedroom suite across the hall from Philippe’s. No one stayed in it, the room empty and the bed made, the lights off. Weak Caribbean dusk glowered through the windows in burned orange.

She smiled, licking her lower lip, and his eyes lowered to her nipples pressing out the fabric of her cotton tank top. She wasn’t even wearing a bra.

Cheyenne did not like it when Carla had strutted around the breakfast table in a nightshirt with her breasts free and swinging. She sure wouldn’t like the situation right now. He laughed it off, saying, “What are you gonna do to me?”

“Make you an honest man,” she said.

He showed her his left hand and wiggled his wedding ring finger. “I’m an honest man already, Carla.”

She raised her eyebrows, eyes tired. “If you want to continue being a dirty liar, let that ember burn in the old newspaper pile of your psyche, be my guest. But I know you, Byron,” she said, “and any minute now that ember is going to catch fire and send your tenements up like they were packed full of hoarders.”

Now she began to draw up her top, and he said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” putting out his hands and pumping them toward her.

She paused, shirt raised, only her tummy showing. They stared at each other, both of them with small smiles on their face; his reluctant, hers sly.

He broke the quiet. “We don’t have time for this right now.”

“And what would you do if I told you we had time.”

He checked his watch without registering the numbers. “We don’t have time, Carla. We’re supposed to get a vacuum.”

“Like we need a vacuum.”

“You said we did.”

“And you fell for it.”

“So you tricked me to get me down here? You just really enjoy toying with me, don’t you?”

She made a low moan that sounded deep and sexual, and something turned over inside him hearing it. She said, “What if I told you Chey sent me down here?”

He put his hands on his hips. “Right. Chey told you to do this. Told Lily to break the plate, too, did she?” Though he was dubious, his brain started to race, trying to make connections that would make it true Carla lured him down here for sex—right out from under his wife’s nose.

Carla said, “I only said what if I told you that.”

“You can see my hands on my hips. Is this the posture of a man who would believe you?”

She chuckled, and then pulled up her T-shirt over her head, stripped topless, letting the shirt hang in one hand against her thigh. Her perfect breasts were revealed to him; huge, round, pendulous. The rosy nipples had tightened to buds.

“Holy shit,” he gasped, grimacing at the effort it took to resist grabbing them.

She let the shirt fall to the floor, then caressed her own breasts, looking down and admiring them, thumbing her nipples. “I know you like them, Byron. Put your dick between them, why don’t you?”

“We have to get that vacuum.”

“Like they haven’t swept it up already.”

“You said we had to get it because the plate was wet.”

“Paper towel will take care of that, Byron. You’re so easy to manipulate.”

He rolled his eyes—it took great effort to pull them away from the most amazing set he’d ever seen on a woman. “At least you’re trying to manipulate me into doing something I want to do, even though I know I shouldn’t.”

“There’s always a bright side, isn’t there?” She smiled, still caressing her breasts, squashing them together, looking his way, her face and expression so alluring. She looked down between his legs and said, “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn for what?”

“It’s Show And Tell, Byron.” She gyrated her shoulders and made her breasts sway.

He couldn’t take his eyes off them. His hand dropped between his legs and the heel rubbed on the belly of his aching arousal without instruction. His breaths came quicker. “Chey told you to come down with me, did she?”

“She’s not selfish. Do you think your wife is selfish?”

“No,” he said, defensive—but defensive because he wanted to protect his wife from the truth. She had been selfish.

“She’s not selfish Byron. . . . Do you think she’s been with Cody?”

“I know she’s been with Cody.”

“I mean since then, since when you watched them in my bedroom.”

“No,” he said, troubled. “Why?”

“Big yacht, you’re not always with her. . . . Shoot, you were gone most of the day today.”

“Cody was with me.”

“Good point. But you know what I’m saying.”

“More head games?”

One eyebrow cocked, she said, “Don’t you like head games?”

“What? No…”

“You sure liked head games or first night together.”

“Oh,” he said, chuckling, then repeating and putting in air quotes: head games.

“Exactly,” she said, easing off the door and strolling toward him. “Take it out. You make me feel foolish standing here with my top off.”

“You did that.”

“You’re making me do it.” She rubbed her hands on his chest and then around his shoulders. “You always think I’m up to something.”

“You usually are.”

“That’s true, but all this talk about head games… you think I’m bending your will, harassing you or something?”

“This is sexual harassment right here,” he said, looking down at her, smiling and amused, this beautiful woman with no top caressing his torso.

“You can call HR if you want,” she said, “but I’m not gonna stop.”

“I’m not say no, I’m just saying…”

With her hands on his chest she pushed back from him, looking him up and down. “I know you think I’m up to something. I know you think I’m up to something and you don’t like it, but I can guarantee you’ll like it. Maybe just for once in your life Byron you might accept someone really likes you for who you are.”

He stared at her dumbly, and the smile never left her face. She stooped and picked up her tank top from where she’d dropped it on the floor. He watched her push her arms through it and pull it over for generous bosom. She pulled the shirt down to shorts, still eyeing him.

He said, “Who says I don’t know that?”

“You’re a bundle anxiety, my friend. You put up shields to protect yourself.”

“I have to.”

“Sometimes those shields block even the good from coming in.”

“You’re the good?”

“You know I am, and you know you want it again.” She levered the door handle like she was ready to leave, but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Want me to watch you jerk off?” The corner of her plump lips curled in a smirk.

“I’m not gonna jerk off,” he said and Carla laughed and left the room, leaving the door open for him to follow.

He grunted, squatted, mashing his cock, every bit of him thinking of sex with Carla and how bad he wanted it. The things he’d wanted to do but couldn’t because all he could think of was Cheyenne. Remembering then the words Sully had said that he hadn’t believed, that had sounded so stupid. That Carla really wanted him, had fantasized about him. That was bullshit.

She was still up to something...

* * *

Before Arlo left, he’d retrieved her laptop and presented to her. She clutched it to her chest now, sitting on the bed and waiting. Mr. Graves would want her to show him the laptop. Mr. Graves would want to know all her secrets.

She waited and waited and waited but Arlo didn’t return for the longest time. Neither did Mr. Graves. Then, at last, movement on the other side of the door. Lily whimpered in anticipation. It was him; she knew it. All the way here. All the way thousands of miles traveling to where she thought he couldn’t get her.

The door opened, and the man stepped into her room.

Tall and imposing, no nonsense, horn-rimmed glasses, wearing his plain old-school Brooks Brothers black suit, white shirt, black tie. One hand held the black briefcase she feared. When she saw it she took a deep breath and held it, heart pounding in her temples. Mr. Graves turned to face her.

“Mrs. Lily Dixon,” he said, controlled and even, intended to sound blank and without emotion, but the tenor of his voice rich with the implication of condescension.

“Mr. Graves,” she said, cordial and formal but her voice tight with fear.

He stood regarding her for a long, uncomfortable moment, getting her squirming and playing with her toes, chewing her cheek.

He said, “I see you have your laptop.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Should we get to work?”

“I’m supposed to be on vacation,” she said, looking away from him, her eyes darting around the room. She’d like to pop one of the windows open, scramble out into the ocean and swim to shore and hide. But Arlo was right, Mr. Graves could reach her anywhere she went. Even if she went off-grid and sold hand-painted landscapes out of a coffee shop in some coconut-milk coffee shop in a forgotten Caribbean village she knew Mr. Graves would show up one day.

“You don’t have a desk.” When she shook her head no, he said, “We’ll work on the bed. Lay your laptop down.”

She complied, setting the laptop down on the bed and sliding it away from her toward Mr. Graves. He hummed in his throat that tune she hated to hear, Wagner, coming closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. She relaxed a little when he set his briefcase down on the floor where she couldn’t see it.

“Open the laptop, please. Bring me up your latest entries.”

She swiveled the laptop toward herself, opened it and typed away, getting access, opening up her accounting software and turning it back so he could see. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked at the screen, tapped the touchpad, scrolled, checking all her entries, her scanned receipts, her cash totals, her bank deposits, the money she paid for insurance, health, business, life; FECA payments, the local taxes, state taxes...

Her stomach turned over and an awful feeling of dread seized her heart. Mr. Graves grunted and clucked his tongue at something he found. He brought out his notepad from an inside pocket and produced his fountain pen. He jotted down some notes, shaking his head to himself.

She said, “What is it?”

He turned the laptop toward her. “What do you see there?”

“What?” she said, not knowing what it was he intended, just seeing a column of numbers.

“Third item.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you count that as advertising?”

“Well…”

“Well,” he said, mimicking her timid voice. “Mrs. Lily Dixon has not learned her lesson, has she?”

“What’s it supposed to be if it’s not advertising?” she whined.

“You told me you had your books under control.”

Even in her PJs she felt naked before him. Naked, exposed, violated. He had so much power, so much authority, a rampant bureaucratic agent of the regime wielding the power of the Federal Government against a citizen. But there was nothing she could do.

“They are under control,” she said, on the verge of tears. “That is advertising— how is that not advertising?”

He shook his head from side to side, grim, showing her that look that said This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Dixon, that this has triggered another audit.”

Her shoulders slumped and her spine went to jelly. “Again?” Her voice was a small, gasping whisper.

“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Dixon. The IRS doesn’t like cheats. And when we find them, when we rout them out”—his voice raised and took on the power of a backwoods preacher—“when our hounds roust them from their sneaky fox holes, we chase them down. And then what do we do?”

She muttered, “Y-you have to sh-show them... show them...”

Mr. Graves finished it for her: “Show them who’s boss.”

Now Mr. Graves lifted his briefcase to his lap and lay has big hands on it. “You’re exactly right, Mrs. Dixon.” He thumbed open the briefcase’s latches.

“No, no, oh no,” she said, pleading, “please, no...”

“It’s time for your audit, Mrs. Dixon. Remove your pyjamas, please.”