Fifty-Boy 14 Now That's Class

Fifty-Boy

14

Now That's Class

The room was over a bar. It was dark. The furnishings were out of date. There was a moldy seaside odor. But Cally seemed to like it. He flopped down on the bed, stretched back, crossed his legs, and said, "Ah..."

Once my eyes adjusted I could see him smiling at the ceiling. "Reach up, Jake, man, and turn on that fan."

Dust spun down on my head. He said, "Now that's class."

"There's a mattress up agains the other door, G."

"Shit, man, 'case you got guests. This lady I'm sending over might decide to stay, or bring a friend to help you outta' your clothes... Plus, gives you a bit a' security 'case somebody decides to try and push in on your party from the other room."

"Oh."

"Now look, I know what you're worryin' 'bout." He sat up on the bed and reached for the lamp on the nightstand. "Shit." The shade fell off. "Pull too hard on these antique furnishing, valuble shit... See what this stuff does? Power, boy. Get you' mojo werkin'." He unwrapped a white handkerchief with trim the color of his suit. "That there's my Naw'Lins accent, mojo werkin'... 'Dis shit gonna' let the dogs out, Jake."

He plucked a blue pill from the folds of his hanky. The light bulb was very dull. The faded brocade bedspread was pink and red with strange stains in funny places. Cally stood and nestled the pill in the curl of a lifted veneer corner on the bureau. "This here jaunt'll make you like a conch eatin' Jamaican, Finn-man. You' be able to deflower ten  vestal virgins right here tonight if you so desire. You' gonna' be like a musline warrior died and gone to pleasure heaven... You getting G?"

"Who'd a thought, G..."

"Same with me, Easy..."

"You, a black guy?"

"Well, we all need enhancement time to time..."

I loved this guy. I was starting to feel like my old self already, like I had some worth again. "What can I ever do to thank you, G?"

"Look, I'm just one beggar tellin' another beggar where to find bread, 'dat's all... You wanna' give old Cally a little somethin'... Well, I do gotta' pay a man for that dick pill..."

His cell phone rang. He listened for a minute and said, "I'm rollin', Blue," and closed the phone. "That was Major Blue, my associate... Tell you what, Easy, we' settle up later. Right now I gotta' run..."

We shook hands, then he said, "Wait one minute. I can't leave you like this." He stepped up on a chair and pushed up a panel in the ceiling. "Damn." The fan nearly knocked his hat off, a small jeff-cap the same color as his suit. "That's no good." He got down and checked behind the nightstand. "There you go."

There was a small recess in the wall. "Put your wallet in here. And if that lady that comes over asks about money, her name's Rosey by the way, skinny white girl, you tell her you ain't got it with you, and besides, you' friend G's gonna' take care of her through Blue. They all know Blue. She'll know just what you're talkin' 'bout. You good with that, partner?"

I said, "Yes." Shit I loved this guy. I felt like I was in a movie. I couldn't stop smiling.

He looked at me and said, "You sure you' white?" Smiling. "Man's too cool."

I tried to be nonchalant.

He pointed at the pill. "Now you be cool, brother man."

"You too, G... Blue... I'll remember... Rosey... Rosey the skinny white girl... Rosey, G's gonna' take care a' you through Blue..." I practiced the cadence and accent like a kid reciting a grocery list. I didn't know what the hell I sounded like, but I was pretty sure I had it figured out.

I didn't.

When the ambulance pulled up to the Hotel Chelsea, my wallet was gone. I tried, I really tried to explain to the girl, Rosey, that Cally-G said he'd take care of her. I tried to be cool, like he said, tried to act like a brother.

What a horse's ass...

She kept staring at my crotch. "He gave you one of those Viagra pills, didn't he?"

Then I started to get a pain down there. It hurt so bad. I started fighting with my pants to get them off. That's when she started laughing. I was in a panic. It never hurt like that before.

She sat on the bed with these great belly laughs looking at me sticking out of my pants.

I was saying, "Oh, please help me." I tried, but I was having a hard time being cool about this.


She came over and tried to help me out of my pants. I got so nervous having another woman near me I got my old friend caught in the zipper. "Oh." The teeth dug in. I was bent over hopping around the room with my pants half way down my thighs and blood on my boxers with an erection the size of Bally's Grand sticking out the slit.

"You're a fool, boy." She was bent over laughing. "You better stop."

"Oh, oh... Call an ambulance." I pleaded. Each pull of the zipper dug deeper into my flesh and the damn thing kept engorging and getting harder and harder. "Please, lady." I squealed. "Please."

"And tell 'em what, you got your dick caught in your zipper?" She was rollicking. "Oh, Lordy, I'm peeing myself."

I jumped back on the bed, writhing in pain, yelling, "Well then get me some WD-40..."

She walked to the nightstand laughing, reached behind and removed my wallet from the recess, took out my money, and walked to the door. "You're the best date I had in weeks."

"Oww..." I couldn't sit up. It was straining so I thought it would burst out of its skin. Then I noticed she had my wallet. "Blue, Blue, G..." was all I could say. "Oh Blue G." I was crying.

Mojo Werkin'

"Boy oughta' be at the Comdey Stop... And Blue'll kick your ass, and G's too, if he sees you two clowns. Oh, Lordy... Blue don't talk to G..." She gasped. "This boy is too funny. I can't catch my breath."

I heard her laughing, walking down the hall. She threw my wallet on the floor and said to the fat guy at the desk, "Skinny, that man in there's a bigger jerk-off than my ex."

Calm down, calm yourself, I thought. It'll deflate. It'll go down. Then you can get this damn zipper down... But it didn't. After two hours I had no choice. I wrapped a towel around me, hobbled to the desk and asked the manager if I could call the hospital. He looked at me, my pants at my ankles, the bloody towel, put his pizza down, wiped his hands on his black bowling shirt, Gene on the pocket, handed me the cordless phone and said, "Keep it short.

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp0741420171

Fifty-Boy 13 If You Only Knew

Fifty-Boy

13

If Only You Knew

I needed a room in Atlantic City. The flight to Florida turned out to be more than I thought. I was so desperate to save money and not have to go home before Molly got to missing me, yeah, right.. that I actually comtemplated sleeping at the Atlantic City Rescue Mission.

Luckily I met a guy at White House Hoagies named Cally-G, an older black gent with wavy hair and a gray streak at the front, tall and slim, honey-mustard colored suit, homey smile, silky tie... He turned me on to a place called the Hotel Chelsea. I paid for his lunch. He tried to say no, but a friend like him, just then, was something I didn't think existed. He said I looked like I needed a hot bath, a big bed, and a woman who liked men. A re-spite (respite) he called it.

A Woman Who Likes Men

I said, "Cally, if you only knew."

I said to him, "Cally, I was with the same woman twenty-seven years and she didn't always treat me like... She kind of took my confidence in my desirability away." I took out my journal. "I even kept notes, like poems about it."

Cally had my number. He looked at the quilted floral journal." That explains a lot. Oh, yeah, I noticed. You got a funny way of putting words together..."

"I do read a lot, or I used to. And I used to do more writing... I really miss that time I had. I miss my books... You know this town doesn't have a bookstore, right? Maybe we could open one, me and you..."

He laughed. I could see him picturing it. "Yeah, me in a bookstore. You could see that, huh?"

"Why not? You seem like you got that entrepreneurial spirit."

"Hmm." He closed his eyes. "Yep, you' a dreamer. But... it takes a dreamer sometimes, takes a lot a' dreamin'... and you definitely a dreamer. But I like it." He laughed. "An entrepreneur. I like that too."

His hands were folded across his belly, contented, just sitting back digesting his surroundings. Then he pointed at me, quick. "How you being married no twenty-seven years." The returned his fingers to his upper lip and stroked his skinny mustache like it was helping him to decipher a code. "Shit, man, I can count. You ain't that old." He had the same comfortable smile, like a funeral director, sad, like he was sharing your burden, but comforting at the same time.

And his shoes, suede to the back and leather over the toe, somehow they reminded me of an old fashioned coffin. He was just so familiar. He leaned in close over the onions and chips left lying on the paper plate, over the crumpled oily napkins and hot pepper leftovers, the hoagie remains tattering his breath. "I got something for you... fix that desirability 'perplexion."

He poured a little more Pepsi over the ice at the bottom of his plastic tumbler, then poured some for me, sat back, reached in his vest pocket, got out two tooth picks, handed one to me and stared picking his teeth. "Go 'head." He motioned.

I'm thinking, this is going to fix my desirability thing, picking my teeth?

His eyebrows rose up, like he spotted someone he'd a'rather not seen. "Wan-nay..." Cally stretched out his hand to a woman getting up from the next booth. "How you doing, Miss J?"

She looked at the gold watch on his wrist and said, "Not as good as you, Mister G." The dark skinned lady was on the broad side, not fat, but athletically built, maybe five-nine or ten, all dressed in black, turtleneck, mid-length leather jacket, corduroy pants, leather jump boots with a jazzy little beret tilting over chin length dreads pulled straight back, silky and black with gray highlights just beginning to show. "The California Gold Boy," she called him.

"You and your Beemer feel like running us over to the Hotel C?" Cally said.

"C'mon." The lady had a gap in the uper middle of her polished smile.

"This here is my friend, Jake."

I extended my hand.

Cally said, "Jake, this here is the famous detective from over Summersea Island, Wanamaker Summersea Jones... Couldn't find the ocean on the beach." He laughed. "But she's got a whole damn island named after her dumb ass, after the light skinned side of the family."

The both laughed. I didn't get it. "You over here to see who...? Janice Hammer about her bank being robbed, or your thug cousin, Blue?"

She didn't answer. We followed her outside.

Cally said, "I know you're not over here for no hoagie... Le-B-B, Janice's husband?"

Wanamaker unlocked her car, a small orange BMW convertible. She dropped us at the door of the hotel and wished me luck.


"Thanks, Miss Jones."

She smiled and drove off.

"She doesn't say much." I said.

"Always been the jealous type." Cally said.

"Were her eyes blue?"

"I believe so. Now what's say we get outta' the wind."

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171

Fifty-Boy 12 Restore A Worm To A Woody

Fifty-Boy

12

Restore A Worm To A Woody

Two weeks later her Ripper revenge came on me. After years of neglect and her being so disinterested, I mean, how many times can you kick the dog and still expect him to come running back carrying his bone and wagging his tail?

Between the thinning hair, turning fifty, the always be a place in your heat Dale Outlay comment, constantly making me feel like a perve just cause I always wanted her so bad, shit, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

My old friend just hung there in the mirror like a worm wiggling in a puddle after a thunderstorm. Nothing I could think of could make him happy. His big dumb head just hung there like withered celery. We both felt tired. The imagination was sucked out of him like a limp windsock. The poor guy was so confused he no longer had any direction.

I looked around the house. The ceiling was cracking and the plumbing needed attention. We were the youngest people on our block. Can you imagine that? This was like the on-deck circle for geriatric heaven. I never felt old til we moved to used-to-be-land: This used to be some city. This used to be some neighborhood. I hated used-to-be.

I thought about the city where I went to work everyday, spontaneous building collapses, roads full of potholes, beat down schools, kids carrying guns, no safe place to play, no hope for tomorrow, shit, I'd carry a gun too.

Bridges rusted out and falling down, businesses moving out, car-jackings, bars and boards on the windows, dollar stores where classy shops used to be, junkies panhandling on every corner, homeless people peeing in the park, bathing in the fountains and defecating in the bushes, keeping working folks from enjoying a bench at lunch time.

Who wants to smell  urine while you eat? Who wants to take your kids to play in an outhouse?

And we had museums - And concert halls - And sports stadiums, and subways, and elevated trains, and commuter trains, and all kinds of public transit systems and cultural amenities, but you took your life in your hands... Tourists being mugged in our city made international news, daily...

We had cops so overweight and out of shape, who refused unifrom dress, or discipline, or standardized training on the bais of whatever cult they subscribed to... You would've thought they were independent contractors of some rinky-dink security guard service at a mall.

And you can forget about competency or quality service when some quasi-qualified political crony mans every city department... We were a hobo-republic, a frigging mendicant paradise where liberal lawyers city-wage-taxed the disposable income out of the working public to ensure the rights of the deinstitutionalized to foul the footpaths and pester the people who paid the freight...

It's their right to beg, just not aggressively.
And if the producers flee to the suburbs, ticket their asses -
Parking tickets for everyone -
If ya' can't tax 'em, ticket 'em when they come to work, or to shop, or visit a hospital, or eat in a restaurant, or see a show, expecially if they have out of state tags, get 'em often and early -
What're they gonna' do, come to our three-hour-minimum-in-line traffic court and fight it? Hey, if they can afford a Starbucks coffee they can afford a ticket.

 The place emptied out like a whorehouse on fire everyday at dusk. And the traffic. The fucking endless traffic. Rust-belt dreariness was corroding my bones.

The Woman I Wanted

And I was tired of sleeping alone,

the woman I wanted more than anyone

in the world just a chat-room away.

 Rolling geography was what I needed. It would be a refreshment to my soul. I saw an an for Florida's Beach, and sent for free material from Tampa, Clearwater, Saint Pete's.

Palm trees, sandy paths, dune grass, turquoise wter, sugar beaches, baby blue sies, brown shoulders, bare feet... Just the kind of azure magic that might restore a worm to a woody. I checked the travel secton down at the bookstore. I went on Travelocity.com. Spirit Airlines had a flight out of Atlantic City to FLA I figured I just couldn't afford to miss.

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp0741420171

Fifty-Boy 11 It Ain't

Fifty-Boy

11

It Ain't

I Encouraged Her To Be A Tease

My head was doing the fandango. I sat on the hassock and tried to think. I knew if I could write it, maybe I could sort it out. I reached for my jouural like a man overboard reaches for a life preserver. I put on my glasses in a stupor and started to scribble, pathos on a page, my heart flapping like a rag on a clotheline.

She's not interested - I fell undesired

She cant take it or leave it - I escalate

She gets annoyed - I resort to outlandish shit

She thinks I'm a perve - I guess, now, I am, I must be

She feels negligent and tries to placate me - Who wants forced reciprocity?

I say why dont you want me like I want you?

She clams up - I get out my journal

"And here I am... Alone... Again." I said out loud. "It's al ass backwards."

I scrawled another line:

If I ain't pursuing it - It ain't

I put the journal down - You know, if I let it go, after a while, she will notice we're sexually inactive. And for some reason that has nothing to do with wanting it, I mean, for her, it's more about retaining control at that point, making sure she still has me under her spell, cause she rarely feels horny... Come to think of it, she's only used the word horny in regards to herself twice, that I can think of, in the twenty-seven years we've been married.

"Wow, having all those guys watch me makes me horny," or "Wine in the chat room with the Ripper gang... that gets me horny."

Then she feels guilty and feels the need to perform some bizarre obligatory, functionary role.

"Who wants that?" I whispered. "Who wants to be made a sex-beggar?"

I got up and started talking to the furniture. "I'd prefer it if she just left me alone."

I was talking out loud so I wouldn't cry.

"I'm tired of being turned on and off.

I know I got some part in all this, I admit it.

Maybe I encouraged her to be a sexpot,

but that was only to counter the slub she was becoming,

because she was letting her own sexuality rot.

"Okay, maybe she's right.

Maybe I asked for it.

But what else could I do when she lost interest?

Cheat on her?

That's for cowards like that mother fucking Dale Outlay.

I refuse to sneak around behind her back, hurt my kids...

The only other options is to leave, if you're gonna' be honest...

Or just bury your sex drive altogether.

But I'll be damned if I signed on to be some married eunuch.

And I'm not willing to just let it go, to let our sex life vaporize like she did,

to let her turn into a sweet gray-haired wife, knitting, sipping tea,

mystery reading, sitting by the fire...

Okay, so I encouraged her to be a tease,

so i created a monster, so what?

I'd rather have that...

I'm not ready for just snuggling and bunny hugs

and neck high floor length flannel nighties...

But I don't want this either...

Fuck! If this is being fifty...

If this is middle-age I hate this fucking being fifty."

"Talking to ourselves again, are we, Sigmund?"

I took off my glasses and watched her coming down the stairs.

"Is that true, you didn't like what we were doing sexually?

You weren't into it?

It was just my thing?

You did it for my benefit? You could've fooled me..."

The way she looked at my journal made me feel like Sigmund-The-Self-Analyzing-Sex-Nerd.

She walked by to the kitchen to fill her water bottle. She would't answer me.

I followed.

"Molly, I can't believe you're content to allow our relationship to stop being

affectionate and demonstrataive.

How can you let it become so asexual and nonverbal,

taking it for granted, letting it become so functional and routine?

Why am I the only one watering the plant?

Time is doing this to us, to one toward the other, and you're letting it.

You're not even putting up a fight."

I was pleading with her to say something... To call me an asshole, to fight back, something... She insisted on her right to remain silent, insisted I figure it out on my own, and walked by me again back to the living room.

Finally she said, "Where's my towel, Mister Journal Man?"

The quilted floral journal was lying open on the hassock.

"I think you love that fucking journal better than you love me."

She hated the journal, kind of like I felt about the chat-room.

"But that's okay," she said. "I have Mister Do, you have your journal. There are no victims, only volunteers." And she walked toward the stairs.''

"What the hell does that mean? You know I love you. I loved you first. And I still love you, but what am I doing wrong? Tell me. What's my crime? What have I done? How come Dale Outlay gets your interest and I don't?"

She didn't like me mentioning his name. I could tell.

She blew past me to the stairs and headed back up to the linen closet.

I followed to the bottom of the stairs, dropped my glasses and accidentally stepped on them. "Shit, my foot." I hopped toward my bathroom, rubbing my foot.

"How long is romance supposed to stay fresh if you don't work on it?" I yelled up the stairs. "You know I'm still crazy where you're concerned."

"You need to take a break from your script." She shouted down the stairs. "You're writing you own comedy. You push too much... All the time, you never give it a break."

I could't believe her indifference. I was so frustrated. I said from my bathroom, "I hope things reverse themselves, I really do. I'm so tired of prompting you, orchestrating our sex life. I'm so tired of being the only one watering the plant."

"Yeah, that's you." She shouted. "Herr Director. Orchestrating everything, telling everybody what to do and when to do it. You're good at that."

"Then you'll feel this lonliness and undesirable-ness... You'll feel unwanted, Molly... Molly, why don't you help me? I'm trying to find some way out of this."

She was in no mood to play.

"I think I gotta' get some distance from you, Moll... What if I have to go away for a while, for a few week? To Florida, for work?" I hopped out to see her reaction and stood by the door.

She sauntered down the steps.

Her breasts had such an engaging bouncisness.

She knew I was thinking how edible she looked in her little gym outfit.

"I'm leaving now."

She said, brushed tight against me and ran her nails down my arm.

I fell back on the hassock, intoxicated by her breath.

"I can't help it. It's just the way I am." She opend the door and went out.

I shouted, "And don't go meeting anybody else at any rest-stops."

She simply closed the door. 

 

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171

Fifty-Boy 10 Turnpike Pissed

Fifty-Boy

10

Turnpike Pissed

She Watched Me Melt

She told me everything, or what I thought was everything. Their rendezvous plans, their chat-room meeting times, the sex chat, the orgasms, the pet names they had for each other, her wet seat in our computer room, him creaming his keyboard...

Every detail etched out a piece of my heart like an awl. It killed me, but I had to know. I finally had her. I thought I had her attention, thought maybe I could get her interested in me again. I kept hearing her say she didn't mean to hurt me. I grabbed onto that. Out of all her words, those were the ones, the only ones I wanted to hear. I'd grab onto anything for a little hope of her wanting me again.

But she knew what she was doing. She had my chin up and my guard down. I stepped right into a left cross that just wrecked everything. She said, "You know it was all your shit that did this."

I said, "Did what?"

"This is your fault." Her nervousness was translating into anger now. "Your forced me to go with other guys."

"What are you talking about? We never went with other guys."

"You know what I mean... Teasing other guys, making me touch them, run my nails over their backs, dancing up against them, flirting..."

I was starting to feel sick all over. "Technically, you may be right, but Moll, you know I was just trying to get a response out of you, something... Something you said aroused you. Some kind of..."

"Asshole. You're a fucking asshole."

I had never seen her look at me with such disgust. The breath went out of me. "But I thought..."

"You thought what? You wanted me to go all the way, so I did."

"You did? With this Ripper guy?"

"No, but I should have, and you shouldn't have interfered. You should've let me meet him. You should have let me have the one I wanted instead of forcing me to go teasing a bunch of guys you picked." She was scary calm.

"And another thing while we're at it. I knew it was you... Ruining it for me with the one guy I wanted... So I made a stop today on the way home..."

I couldn't imagine what was coming next.

"I met your friend, Jimmy."

I was disconnecting. "Who's Jimmy?"
"Jimmy!" She shouted. "Chat-room, phone-sex Jimmy!"

The way she was showing her teeth scared the shit out of me. "You met Jimmy?" I was astounded. "You got that much energy around this Ripper guy?"

"On the Turnpike. Exit seven... Told him I'd be by the door, all in black."

"Why?"

"Don't worry. I didn't fuck him, if that's what you're worrying about. I just wanted to see him so I could tell him to fuck off!" She screamed.

"You actually met him?"

She didn't answer. Then she said. "You're lucky I don't tell you to fuck off."

I was stunned. All I could think to say was, "What did he look like?"

"He was short." She laughed.

"Why'd you go and do that? We haven't had sex in two months and we haven't talked to him in three."

The girl was turnpike pissed. She wouldn't answer.

"You must really love this Red Ripper guy."

"Fuck you, asshole."

Spite was oozing out of every pore in her body. I could smell it.

"You should've let me have him. I don't give a shit about his wife or her goddamn lawyers if you want to know the truth. I'd kick her ass and yours too. I don't know if I even believe you. You think you're so smart. If he sent pictures to me at work, how'd you see them? You think you got it all figured out. You don't know shit. You should've butted the fuck out."

The yellow counter tops were making me dizzy, like I licked a stick of margarine. I wanted to say something, but all I could think to say was, "Who is this Red Ripper guy?" I could hardly make myself say his name.

"None of you business. Don't pretend you don't know him. You've seen him in the chat-room. You wanted me to tease him and have cyber-sex with him, or call him on the phone for phone sex while you fucked me. You started it. Now I'm having him."

She started unpacking her satchel, the thermos I made her coffee in, the Tuperware I made her salad in... All the girls in her office saying, Ooo, it smells so good, get him to make one for me... Out onto the yellow counter tops.

"Now can I get out of these work clothes, please?"

"Him? The guy who didn't want me in the picture? You x-ed me out because of Dale Outlay? Mister Do?"

The Styrofoam ceiling beams were evaporating into my lungs. My head was throbbing.

"Yes, him. He's the one I want. And he's the one I'm going to have. You knew it and you loved it." She pushed past me into the parlor.

"No. I didn't know."

I waited a minute and held onto the wall to gain my bearings.

She was sitting on the hassock taking off her shoes.

"And I don't love it." I said. "What's in that for me, if wants me x-ed out? I only initiated this stuff with other guys to get a rise out of you, cause you were so flat-line, so disinterested... This was the only thing that... And I never went out and got an older woman when you lost interest... Like he did to his wife."

"Bullshit." She said.

"What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, that's your problem, isn't it?" She pulled off her socks.

"My problem?"

I'm thinking, hmm, cute little feet... Shit, why can't I stop it with her? What the hell's wrong with me? She knew I was staring at her toes and her ankle bracelet.

"You wanted me to with other men, so I did."

"But you just said you didn't."

"Well, I didn't, yet. But I'm going to."

"So you were going to meet him in Baltimore."

"Well, that's what you wanted, isn't it? You came in the chat-room, you spied, you got what you deserved."

"You know that's not what I wanted."

"That's not how I understood it. Besides," she said, "I never liked it anyway. I just did it cause that was the only way you could get it up."

My mouth opened.

She watched me melt.

I said, "I'm perpetually up, especially for you... Why you putting the horns on me? That could never happend. You can't do..."

She got up and said, "I'm going upstairs to change for the gym."

And that was that. It was that simple. She kicked my ass. All this time I thought we'd been savoring this thing together. But she just handed me my bag and left.

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171

Fifty-Boy 9 Alienation Of Affection

Fifty-Boy

9

Alienation Of Affection

The Mysterious Other Woman

That evening at home the pots were cold. There was no dinner ready, no compliments or comments, no lunch for tomorrow in Tupperware. I was sitting in the living room in my robe and his pajama pants. I opened my journal, looked at her over my glasses and read:

All this time I thought we were a duo, a team, a unity of two. Never one of us could be seduced to abandon our unity. Did the person exist who could cause one of us to ente another duo, to keep a secret from the other, to sever, betray, forget: Us, We, Team, Duo-Uinty... Leave, openly, or secretly, the partner, out of it, alone?

"You ought to get a publisher for that diary, Herr Professor, you're right up there with Anne Frank. What a waste of genius... That was you in the chat-room, wasn't it?

She was tough and smarter than me. You know she didn't just lie down and admit anything. Whoever gives up without a fight?

"You had no right to do that." She looked nervous, but she had a plan. At first she denied everything.

I had to drag every concession out of her point by point.

"You and him had a thing going, didn't you?"

"Me and who? Which one of your sex fantasies are you talking about now?"

"You know who. Are you denying you were in the chat-room this afternoon?"

"Wasn't me."

"Then why'd you say, 'That was you in the chat-room, wasn't it?"

She wouldn't answer.                                                                              

"Oh... Okay... Then what am I gonna' do about his wife calling here?"

That got a response. She said, "She didn't call."

I wouldn't answer.

"Tell me." She insisted. "She called here?" On what number?"
"Not the first time, is it?" I sensed it wasn't and took a chance.

"You tell me what she said."

"You tell me." I waited.

"She never called before." She was being cagey, but I knew I had her thinking.

"Hey," I said, "If you're not talking, I'm not."                                                                

"She emailed." She said reluctantly.

"...And...?"

"She said please don't email my husband anymore."

"You emailed him, from here?"

"You don't know, Mister Spy?"

"I don't think you did, Molly." I blufffed. "I always check the history. You never emailed this guy from home.." I didn't know exactly what check the history meant, but it sounded good.

She just stood there, challenging me. She was being adamant.

"Nobody called here." She finally said.

"Okay." I turned away. "I'll deal with the wife myself... Or you talk to her lawyers in divorce court... Ever hear of alienation of affection?"

That got a reaction. "Okay, then fuck you. I emailed him from work. So what?"

"From work? So he knows your real name?"

"So?"

"So his wife knows your real name. And what you sent. And, where you work. And with reverse look-up... That's how she got our home number. What' you send this guy anyway?" It was all a bluff. Nobody had called. I was just taking a chance and it was paying off.

Not The Sexy Ones?

   Pictures." She said.

  "Pictures? Which one? Not the sexy ones?"

  "He sent me pictures."

                             

  "Sexy ones? He sent you sexy ones?"

  "No, of him and his son, and their dog."

 "Their dog?"

"Yes." Her chin was quivering."

"You don't even like dogs."

"I like you."

I lied and said, "I saw what he sent... Fat blubber boy."

"How?" She half believed me.

"He's a big guy... The windowpane pajamas from the Gap were for me? I didn't know you liked 'em that big..."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You denied everything... You made me pull teeth to find out."                 

"What about his wife? Did she really call here?"

I had to maintain the lie, it was the only thing I had to make her cooperate.

"Yes, she called, and she was pissed. You're lucky it was me who answered. I acted completely in the dark. I told her I was furious and that I'd take care if it. You're lucky I can maintain my composure. I assured her she'd never have to worry about you contacting her husband again."

"But what did she say?"

"Say? I acted pissed, and surprised, and she was threatening hell... for your ass. Called you a homewrecker, said you were destroying her family and her kids' future... That he was jerking off in the computer-room at night... And besides, it's me who's asking the questions... If you want me to help you out of this, you gotta' tell me everything."

The queen and foundress of the NIBDA was in a panic.

I said, "And you were gonna' meet this bozo? In Baltimore, of all places?"

She didn't answer me at first. Then I said, "She knew all about your lovers rendezvous."

"She did?"

"Yep, and she was gonna' ambush you two, in Baltimore, with the private detective she had following his dumb behind, and her attorney. And, she said she was gonna' kick your ass in the bargain. She's a big girl, Moll..."

She suddenly became defiant again. "I didn't do anything, and neither did he. We just talked, that's all. You can't get taken to court for talking. I'm not stupid."

"Alienation of affection?" I knew it didn't mean shit legally...

"Well."

"Look, Moll," I said. "You think I'm the only asshole who keeps a journal? You think your big dog didn't spill his guts out on paper, about his wife's neglect, and his fantasies about you?"

Molly looked green around the gills.

"You ever hear of a chat-room archive? Every single word, cemented on the hard drive. Her detective has all that shit. You and him and his tongue are in a jam."

"I feel sick."

"If you want my help to get this woman off your back, I mean, you want your mother... And everybody where you work... And my family and all, to see you draggged into divorce court... My mother?" I smiled at her and said, "Huh, ya' little homewrecker?"

"Stop it."

"Hussy."

She finally grinned. She could be devilish when she wanted to.

"You like being the mysterious other woman, don't you?"

"That's his problem." She said.

"Molly, it's time to get down to business. Tell me about the code words. What's yours, what his? You want spymaster's help, right?"

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171

Fifty-Boy 8 Break The Code

Fifty-Boy

8

Break The Code

Your Party-Girl

I never made advances in bed. Years ago i was given to understand that it would be better to let her initiate. I would reduce our bad feelings and the number of arguments we had over sex.
                                                           

"You're always on me, back off.

Give it a rest once in a while.

Don't you ever think of anything else?"

In her mind the party was over. She'd settled down and married. We were out of our twenties and into our thirties. Time to grow up.

"Your party-girl just packed a bag and took a taxi to the maternity ward.

The magic days are done.

For Sale

You got me pregnant, you made me a wife, now I'm making you a husband.

So tote that barge and lift that bale, cut the grass and buy some diapers.

Our dancing days are over.

Just quit whining about it and put the damn backless shoes in the attic, sell the guitars and start building us a nest."

The thrombotic thirties, damn, I couldn't believe it.

Suddenly I was her stay-at-home-plain-jane provider. I merited no particular explanation as to why I was no longer of interest to her or what I might do to re-spark things. The need to be attractive to me was over as far as she was concerned.

So I didn't push it. Still, I would love to have known if there was any chance of reviving things. But she would never explicity verbalize what turned her on. There was a thick fog and we just couldn't see our way to hear each other. I guess especially me.

Break The Code

I spent years trying to interpret signs and break the code. I loved true-life spy novels. And Rainbow looked like a code to me, a code that left me on the outside, a code I wasn't supposed to know existed, a code designed to protect a privileged communication and a passion-driven romance from plain-jane me.

After I saw his single word invitaion I haunted the chat-room at various hours during the day posing as the Red Ripper, hoping he wouldn't come in, but that Moll would, that she would check in from her terminal at work. And one afternnon, she did. She said, "You'll always have a special place in my heart, but I have to break this off." At first she didn't suspect me. But by the time she did, it was too late. She'd given their game away, asked for their code word, and said she had to break off the meeting they were planning Baltimore. "I think Spymaster knows." she said. "I think he saw Rainbow."

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171

Fifty-Boy 7 An Ordinary Guy

Fifty-Boy

7

An Ordinary Guy

I'm an ordinary guy and I wish there was some original way I could say it, but I nearly evaporated like steam from a sewer, nearly faded like a Popsicle on a pavement in August, little ants with little straws sucking up my puddle, siphoning me away one pustule at a time.

I felt like a pregnant woman throwing up in the morning on a crowded subway at rush hour, like a dying guy decaying in the back of the bus, not able to tell anybody or ask for help. Everybody around can tell you're coming apart, but who wants to be near a corpse, somebody said, especially when it's still living and trying to talk?



Well, I was that corpse, that was me when I discovered she'd gone behind my back to arrange a meeting with this joker from the chat-room. I was wearing his windowpanes and he was trying on my wife.

Tease Me...

It was my own fault. I primed the pump. It was a risky game, but nobody made me play. Years before when she lost interest in sex and in me, after our kids came along, I discovered by a quirk that the thought of other guys finding her attractive turned her on. Previous to that I'd been very jealous. But when I saw that a little teasing and a little flirting resulted in my getting the benefit, I thought, what the hell, why not? So we made a game of it. But it had always been something we did together. Not that we actually did anything with a third person, we didn't. But we'd talk and fantasize and get each other going. I figured it was harmeless and I was in full control. I did the choosing and could cut it off any time I wanted to... Talk about naive...

One summer in Cape May we went to a crowded bar. It was packed. The band was cooking. The night was sweaty. She was wearing a tight black dress with heels that had no back and showed off her pretty feet and pink toenails and made you want to take her in your mouth.

I sat at the bar and watched. She made the dance floor sway. The dark tan and the low-cut dress gave a conttrast to the space between her breasts and the skin of her collarbone and neck that made it impossible not to stare, not to want to parachute into her valley, face first, and never come out.

The way she filled out the dress, the way it clung high and rode up her thighs, the way her body moved to the music. Super Freak... Brick House... How low can she go? How wide can she spread 'em? How far up do they go? The way she ran her nails along the body of guys who squeezed by holding their drinks over their head and pressing close, she'd look into their eyes like undoing Ulysses, bite her lip in defiance, smile and say she couldn't help it. Reggae madness, Tease me, tease me, tease me, til I lose contol...

Outside we couldn't wait til we got home. I had her in the car, in the front seat, in the back, and on the beach. We'd relive incidents like that over and over again throughout the year. She'd tell me stories about driving guys crazy at work. She'd tease truckers on the road, torment the husbands of her friends when we were out together, tell me about it while we made love, recount stories of lovers before my time, somehow, it kept things juicy. And in the winter, when we got bored, we discovered cyber-sex and phone-chat, harmless fun between the two of us. And when it was good, like the nursery rhyme; it was very very good, but when it went bad...

It wasn't complicated, how I discovered her secret. It happened one night when I brought her a Sangster's Jamaican Rum Cream over ice. She was sitting at the computer, chatting with her friends, when a guy with the screen-name Red Ripper said a single word to her, Rainbow, he typed.

I'd read somewhere in one of my spy novels, Spy Catcher, by Peter Wright, that there's a sort of empty room in the mind of any intelligence operative reserved for bits and pieces of things that don't seem to fit anywhere, don't make sense in context, things that raise unanswered questions, things like Rainbow.

Many times when I'd come into the room, she'd try to distract me, or it seemed to to me, hide what she was doing. It wasn't strange. I did it myself. I was embarrassed to admit I was looking at sites that featured men and women in sexual situations, trying to get ideas and story situations that would turn her on and keep her interested. I told myself, in the end, it was just to get her to play.

What I didn't want to think about or admit at the time, was when it came down to it, I was at a place where I really didn't care anymore, why or even if she'd lost interest. I just wanted to satisfy myself. I was tired of trying to figure it out on my own. I knew that she'd lost interest after the kids were born. I spent years trying to understand it and fix it, but nothing seemed to work, not letting it rest, not upping the ante. Whether it was me she'd lost interest in, or in men and sex generally, it got to the point where it didn't matter as long as I got mine.

But this particular night, I had my first hint that she had not lost interest in men or in sex generally, just in me. She was interested in him because the last thing he thought about when he saw the name Molly pop up on the screen was anything to do with family, responsibility, or understanding or fixing anything. For them it was the wild thing, just pure raucous sex. Anything else was not a possibility. This was a fling.

When he said Rainbow I could tell it was something I wasn't supposed to see. I didn't understand it, but I could sense it. It made me curious and it excited me. I was being excluded. I didn't want to think about why or admit it might be too late for me, admit I'd ruined it for myself with Molly. It was his turn, obviously. He was the younger man with the new baby and the cold wife, and Molly was the older woman, his pheromone-jones... the primal-heat

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp/0741420171

     

Fifty-Boy 6 I'm Not Taking A Salad

Fifty-Boy

6

I'm Not Taking A Salad

Pheromone-Jones

I heard her car pull in the driveway.

I slipped on the penny-loafers I kept by the door,

pulled on the jeans and muscle-shirt she liked and ran to open the garage.

I was a sucker for Molly.

Before long I knew she'd disappear upstairs to

the computer-room with the dinner I'd prepared.

I knew she'd do it, ignore me, take me for granted, but I tried anyway. I trimmed the beard, hid the quilted journal so she wouldn't call me Herr Professor or Sigmund, put on the tight jeans, years ago she mentioned she liked a guy in tight jeans, wore the muscle-shirt she wanted me to buy, figured I'd show off my exercised arms, see if I could get a reaction on my fiftieth birthday.

But I was no match for the guys at the gym or the anticipation of her chat-room buddies. What I got was the usual flat-line.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, I'm thinking as she walked in the door. "How'd the boys at the gym like that outfit?" I held the door and her bag.

"They liked it." She handed me her towel and walked to the kitchen. She lifted a pot lid. "Something smells good."

"Yeah, you girl."

"I meant food, silly."                                                 

"I take care of my girl. And your salad's all ready in tupperware for tomorrow."

She leaned over the sink and washed her hands.
"I'm not taking a salad."

"Why?" I stared at her calves.''
     
                                                                              
"We're having a going away party for Mary."

"She's leaving?"

Her arms and shoulders looked so good I wanted to bite her neck. "Remember I told you about the conversation I overheard?" She dried her hands on the dishtowel hanging from the refrigerator door.

"The guy she snuck away to meet at the Shore, from the chat-room?" I said.

Her clevage jiggled ever so slightly as she dried her hands. I hoped I wasn't visibly drooling. She picked up her dinner tray and headed for the stairs. "Yep, moving the Shore."

I watched her walk away thinking, Nice tight little ass. "You're kidding? She's leaving her husband for a chat-room dude? You can't be serious? Where ya' going? What about her kids?" I tried to catch up.

"Upstairs."                                                                                     
                                                                                        
"With the chat-rats?"

"Her kids are grown, just like ours." She said. "You don't mind, do you? Just serial-killer talk. You'd be bored. You could go down and have a coffee at the bookstore, make mental notes in your first diary."

The door to the computer-room closed. I stood at the bottom of the stairs holding her gym bag and towel. "No. Me? Why would I mind? ...Bored, by serial-killer talk? Hey, I can be as macabre as the next guy if that's what it takes to get a date."

She didn't even notice that I'd dressed for her. Or, if she did, she didn't say anything. Maybe the loafers threw off the outfit. Maybe sneakers would've been better, or sandals...

Nah.. I had to face it. I could ride a bicycle naked down Broad Street and she wouldn't notice or comment unless I hit a pothole, flipped over the handlebars and caught my nuts in the spokes.

"That was stupid. Why'd you do that, ruin a perfectly good bicycle?"

I'm twisted in the wreckage and she's looking at the hole.             

"...City's going to surcharge you for that pothole."

Me, on the other hand, I see her and I'm thinking, succulent, luscious, round-in-all-the-right-places.

Now women, of course, would claim it was all in our minds or we did it to ourselves. They would complain about having to dye their hair, or point to their ever so slightly rounded little belly, or butt and say they could be better, or to their breasts and say they weren't as high as they used to be. And I guess there are women out there who count every wrinkle and I understand all that, but men will know just what I'm talking about.

When certain women reach a certain age they begin to radiate this primal heat and it doesn't matter if every hair is perfectly in place. Shit, we like it better if it isn't. It just the fact that finally, here's a woman who enjoys us a much as we enjoy them.

Primal-Heat

We walk into stuff, spill coffee, act like fools, she pets our head, makes us clean it up, we wag our tail and everybody's happy. And I can understand all that in person, but explain primal-heat, explain a pheromone-jones in the chat-room. How'd she do that, send it out through cyber-space and zap men right in the giga-byte, long distance? Some things, boy, you're better off not knowing.
            
Hey, look." I called up the stairs. "I'm gonna' go out and pick the next victim for my birthday murder spree, okay?" I baked myself a cake with a knife in it."

"Get me a Cadbury with almonds at the Wawa while you're out. Ann says hi." She wasn't listening to a word I was saying.

"I'm going naked." I was really taking off my jeans and putting on the long blue windwopane pajama-pants I found in a Gap bag uner her desk, two sizes too big, but she kept her cool and swore they were for my birthday.

"Okay, just be careful driving... And take your car."

I'm thinking, Who the hell is Ann? I pulled on my Wal-Mart robe and cinched it around my waist. My journal fell out of the pocket. I picked it up and put it on the end table. Wal-Mart was where we usually got my pj's and underwear, which usually ended up two sizes too small after the first washing. I wondered who the big windowpanes were really for.

I got my TV tray, sat down and aimed the remote. On clicked Cheaters with Tommy Grand. He was chasing another errant husband, catching him and the other woman on camera. Shit, what about the errant wife? I ought to call that show. It was always on when I least needed seeing it.

www.amazon.com/Fifty-Boy-Desmond-Jones/dp0741420171