Chapter 5

With the beginning of the new school year, and then a few weeks later at the end of the grass-growing season, Benny had to make some decisions about the allocation of his time. He was a good student and he had no intention of letting his grades suffer. His lawn care customers understood that he’d have to reduce the number of lawns he and his hired friends tended, and nearly all the ones he dropped when classes began asked to be included on next summer’s list.

Those women who fell into the special customer category understood their secret lover’s amorous activities would have to be sharply curtailed, as well, simply because there weren’t enough hours in the day. None of them knew precisely how many they were, but they appreciated the likelihood that they might have to muddle through with their husbands or significant others until school let out next spring. When the grass cutting came to a complete stop, they were all scrambling to invent little chores to get Benny into their homes and into their beds.

All except one, that is. Mrs. Brothers hired Benny to carry out general services in her home every Saturday morning from eight until noon (Mr. Brothers was always at the bank during those hours). Those services might be anything from stripping old wallpaper, to cleaning bird poop off the garden statuary, to rearranging junk in her attic. She cleverly cleared hiring his services with his father, saying it was her opinion that every young person should have some kind of scheduled, productive activity as a part of his life. She stroked Mr. Selkirk’s pride by remarking about his son’s exceptional entrepreneurial talents, and insisting he should be encouraged to keep up his efforts to succeed. Personally, Mr. Selkirk thought the twenty-dollar per hour wage was a bit over the top for a boy of Benny’s age, but he agreed in principle with her outlook and thanked her for her generosity.

Notwithstanding the fact that Benny’s bedroom skills were the primary reason he was offered employment, he never once shirked the duties for which he was being paid. Whatever work was assigned for any given Saturday was done well and done to completion before he turned his attentions to satisfying Mrs. Brother’s sexual appetites. In fact, his insistence on carrying out those duties led to a temporary parting of the ways one day when Dianna was feeling particularly horny and laughingly suggested that he could forget all about his make-work tasks and spend that time screwing her into oblivion, since sex was a lot more fun and the money was better. To her surprise and confusion, Benny got a hurt look on his face and took off out the door.

For a week he wouldn’t even answer her calls or return her messages. The following Friday, she waited in her car outside the school and convinced him to at least sit and talk with her.

Having lived her entire life in a privileged society, Dianna was used to being able to buy whatever she wanted, and somehow, she hadn’t caught on to the fact that Benny considered his work and their sexual activities to be two entirely separate things. Perhaps the distinction between being paid a specific fee for sex, and accepting a gratuity for it, was drawing a fine line, but in his mind, it was an important line.