Chapter 23: Laura Discovers Secret

It was 6:30 A.M on a Sunday morning in November and we had the day ahead of us. Laura had changed from her madam's dress to the loose fitting pants and shirt she so often wore. In twenty-five minutes I would have her undressed and we would be in her bed. She took her seat on the passenger's side but when I started to close the car door she grabbed me by my jacket lapels and pulled me to her.

"You smell like a whorehouse," she said accusingly. I thought she was joking. We had just come out of the brothel. I kissed her but she pulled back. "And you taste like sausage." I still thought she was kidding. I had had two helpings of everything on the breakfast table.

As I closed the door it was evident that she was serious. A few minutes before she had grinned back at me from across the table. Now, her jaw was set and her eyes told me she was angry about something. Was it Rosita's smell? That would be easy to explain.

I wanted to talk about something else on the way home. I wanted to tell her about the meeting with Mr. Waite and being awarded the contract to dismantle one of the houses he had bought. Instead I had to tell about Sylvia being there when the telephone rang. Before I knew it I was not telling, I was explaining about how Jimmy and I had secured the front of a business with plywood where thieves had knocked out the glass. I was explaining how upset Rosita had been, how I had massaged her shoulders and neck and how she had gone to sleep beside me. Laura sat silently, staring straight ahead as I explained how I had gone to sleep and been awakened by a barking dog.

"Where was your girlfriend?" Laura wanted to know, looking my way for the first time.

"She's not my girlfriend. I mean, she's mad at me. I think we're breaking up. She's gone away for the weekend." I had put my foot in my mouth. There was no way I was going to tell Laura why Huley was mad at me, even if I had to lie. She was not to know that I had stood Huley up twice because of her.

"And her father?" She wasn't interested in why Huley and I were breaking up. That was a relief.

"They're together. Huley went with him."

"What's their name? You talk about Huley and Rosita but what's their name?" This was not like Laura. She had never asked me probing questions before. Was she jealous? Did she not trust me?

"There's something I left out," I said, trying to change the subject. I told her about waking when the dog barked and discovering my hand on Rosita's tit with her hand covering mine. I told of my thinking, this woman is 17 years older than me and told of my feet being asleep and how I had crawled to the kitchen before I could raise myself up.

Laura snickered at my shock of discovering my hand on Rosita's tit but she soon recovered.

"What's the family name?" She was being persistent about the name. I was going to have to tell her it was Ollie Pettersen, the man who had bought the Corvette from her and later, when she wouldn't give him what he wanted, had burned her butt with a cigarette.

"Do you remember when I said there was one thing I couldn't tell you?" I was trying one last thing.

"What's that got to do with the family name?" She asked. I had never seen Laura in a hostile mood before. It scared me.

"That's what I can't tell you. I mean I can, if you insist I will," I said, crumbling.

Laura was pensive. I drove and watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was biting her lip, and then she nodded. She had it. "It's him isn't it? Does he have a Mexican wife?"

"Her father's Mexican American. Her mother's Swedish I think. Remember I told you Huley has blond hair? She's one quarter Mexican."

"You've been screwing Ollie Pettersen's daughter?" Laura was screaming at me. Tears were welling in her eyes. I had not seen her that upset for a long time.

"Only once," I said defensively.

"You've been with her at school and the party you told me about. You've been to their house. How could you? He's an animal and you've been hob-knobbing with him."

We were pulling into our driveway. I pressed the brakes and reached for her. "Let me explain." She fought me off.

"I'm not touching you until you wash that whore smell off," she said, getting out of the car and running toward the back door.

She ran through the new room ahead of me without stopping to see the new paint and the way the floor glistened. I rang the new doorbell but Laura pretended she didn't notice.

To make matters worse I had not put clean sheets on her bed. It had been stripped since the day we played restraint. It must have been the bare bed that brought her to her senses. She may have realized that I had been busy. She turned to give me an appraising look.

"Take your shower. I'll make the bed," she said, sounding almost sympathetic.

But the sympathy she may have felt did not last. While in the shower I heard water running. Laura was scrubbing her makeup off. When I closed the bedroom door behind me the room was dark. All I could see was the light on the answering machine which reminded me I had vowed not to let a ringing phone disturb us.

"What are you doing?" Laura said from her side of the bed.

"I'm unplugging the phone," I said. There was no response.

By feel, I discovered that she was wearing the long night gown. Not a good sign, I thought. But she didn't object when I put my arm around her. She covered my hand on her stomach with hers.

"Anything else you want to know?" While showering I had decided to tell all.

"Later," she said, patting my hand. She sounded tired.

Keeping secrets from her had been hard. I was glad she had found out the identity of Huley's father. I wanted to tell her everything but she had said later. Feeling her hand slip from mine I knew she had gone to sleep.

I was tired too but I could not sleep. I was letting Laura's bad disposition bother me and the large breakfast I had eaten didn't help. Getting out of bed I tiptoed out of the room and walked from room to room. On the kitchen table were three glasses. The one Sylvia had used was empty but mine had not been touched. The straight scotch smelled strong. Lifting the glass to my lips I took several sips and chased them with the water I had poured earlier for Sylvia.

When I returned to the bed Laura reached for me. "Hold me," she murmured in the dark. With her in my arms everything seemed better. When I awoke Laura was not in the bed.

"There was nothing to eat in the refrigerator so I found your car keys and went to the store," Laura said when I found her in the kitchen. She came to me for a kiss. Her hands felt warm on my bare back and her cheek was soft against mine.

"That's something else I haven't had time to do," I lamented. Sylvia often brought groceries when we had dinner together but I had not told her Laura was going to be home for the day. I hadn't had a haircut for a month and had not cleaned or done housekeeping chores for weeks.

"Can you find time for a shave?" she laughed, brushing her hand across my chin.

We had a sandwich and a glass of milk. There was a bowl of fruit in the center of the table. Laura gazed across the table at me like she was seeing me for the first time.

"When were you going to tell me?" Her voice was calm and mellow, quite a change from the early morning when she had first discovered that I had been, 'hob knobbing, ' as she put it, with Ollie Pettersen.

"As long as I could, I guess. But now I'm glad you found out," I answered, being very careful to make eye contact. She watched me speak, casually peeling a banana.

"Did I hear you're breaking up with Huley? Why?"

I nodded and took a banana from the bowl. "She's breaking up with me because I've broken two dates in as many weeks," I said, wishing immediately that I had explained the reason for the breakup differently. There was any number of other causes that made the breakup inevitable.

Laura was pensive. Cautiously, she asked, "did you break the dates because of me?"

I had sworn to myself never to let her know but in a way I was glad she had made the discovery. "The first one was the Wednesday afternoon when we went to lunch and then shopping. The second was Friday night when I went with Wanda to pick up the new girls."

"Oh my, oh my, it was me. Honey, I'm so sorry. Why didn't you say something?"

I laughed at her, thinking that she would see my lack of concern over loosing Huley. When she didn't respond I told her about Huley being a self-absorbed spoiled girl who let her temper rule her behavior. "She has a lot of Ollie in her."

"If she's that bad why did you get involved with her?"

Since I was revealing the one secret I had been keeping I decided to answer honestly. "Two reasons. She's a very attractive girl. She drives your car. By getting to her I was getting to Ollie."

"NO!" Laura's mouth flew open and she was out of her seat, flying toward me. "NO! I won't have it. He's a dangerous man." Her arms were around my neck and she was kissing my face. I felt her damp cheek next to mine.

I pulled her into my lap. She sat there but she was on edge. With her left arm around my neck she alternated telling me to end my plan to get even with Ollie and hitting me on the shoulder with her free hand. The third time she banged my shoulder it was beginning to hurt. When she did it again I slapped her ass a few times and the next time she did it I slapped her ass harder. Her state of agitation was dwindling. The next time I slapped her ass she giggled. It became apparent that she was hitting my shoulder so I would slap her on the butt.

Suddenly she jumped up and shed her pants and shirt. She took her seat on my lap wearing only panties and a bra. My cock was beginning to stir in my shorts.

We talked for an hour. I told her about seeing the blue vein in Ollie's forehead when Huley wanted to take me to her room and again when we had gotten home late from the party. I told her about Ollie striking his daughter and how Rosita had settled him down. I even told her that I had given Huley the nickname and gotten Ollie's attention when I had called his daughter Tess.

"I don't like it. You don't know what he's capable of."

"Don't you see? He knows that I know. The night he hit Huley I told him he may as well have burned her on the butt with a cigarette."

"You didn't!" She exclaimed, hitting my shoulder again which escalated into another round of trading shoulder hits for ass slaps. I soon had her giggling again. She was beginning to take notice that my cock was expanding beneath her.

"As of last night I've slept with his wife and both daughters."

"I thought you said nothing happened," Laura said, pushing herself away to look at me.

"Nothing did happen. We fell asleep together on the same couch, that's all," I said.

"I'm glad nothing happened," she said, rubbing her bra against my chest.

"Ollie doesn't know that. And now he's indebted to me. I've got him where I want him," I boasted.

"Stop talking that way. Let's forget the whole thing. My ass has been repaired like new."

She stood and turned her back to me. "Want to see?"

There was so much more I wanted her to know. I had not told her how Sylvia had been dressed and how she had acted the night before when we were interrupted by the telephone call from Rosita. I had not told her about the meeting with Mr. Waite and Sid Parker, the property manager. I was still excited about getting the contract to dismantle the old house. But her offer was too attractive to turn down. I followed her into the bedroom.