Eighteen

“YOUR DADDY OUT ON THE FARM?” Melody laughed as we joined Liebowitz and Bob. “Isn’t that spreading it a little thick?”

“The keeper of my virginity?” I shot back. “Where do you keep it?” We both were howling.

“Tell me about your meeting,” Bob said. I handed him the contract.

“Oh. Nice pen. Waterman. I forgot to give it back,” I said. “Now, Liebowitz. What the hell is your name, man?” He laughed.

“Al.”

“Al, I’m Tony and this is Melody. Our distinguished Mr. Smith is Bob Bowers, the critic whose review ran in this morning’s paper.”

“Geez. You guys just pulled off a hell of a coup. I don’t think they’ve ever made so much money on a show before. Not without stealing the art and reselling it later.”

“How the hell do they stay in business?” I asked.

“I think they launder money for some mob,” Al said. “The artists in the gallery pay to have their work on display. Caldwell calls it paying for shelf space. He doesn’t buy any of the art in the gallery. It’s all on consignment, so he doesn’t have anything invested in the stock. Your stuff is here on consignment. And your agent paid to rent Gallery C for fifteen days. After that, most of it will go into storage and a couple prints will hang in one of the other galleries. You’ll still get charged shelf space for everything they have, though.”

“Man. What a racket. Where are we going for dinner, Bob?”

The next couple of days went smoothly. I was not required to be at the gallery, except during the opening reception. I thought I’d stop in occasionally, though. Saturday, I disconnected the projection equipment and shipped it. On the way out, I met the guy with the weird voice coming in.

“Oh, sir,” I said. “It was awful of me to walk off last night with your pen. I was so distracted. I was going to leave it here at the desk for you, but I didn’t know who to say it belonged to.”

“Dominic di Mento,” he said gruffly.

“Well, Mr. di Mento, here’s your pen. It’s nice, but that smooth barrel sure collects fingerprints. Thank you for loaning it to me.”

He took the pen and examined it as I walked out the door with Melody. It was Saturday afternoon and we had promised each other a walk in Central Park.

We went to museums, Broadway shows, and more shopping. And we made love. A lot. In fact, every time we walked into our room, we ended up in bed, the shower, on the sofa, or even standing looking out the tenth floor window of the hotel while we made love.

We talked to Kate, Lissa, and Wendy out in California. Kate was a little angry, even though she had more sales on her first night than I did. I figured it must have been the owner of the gallery that set her off if the two boys were anything alike. We were all looking forward to Nebraska on Friday, though. Lissa called Monday and said they were flying back to Seattle. None of them liked the San Francisco art scene.

Tuesday, I could sense a change in Melody. I wasn’t sure what the deal was. After we talked to our wives Tuesday morning, Melody got quiet. At one o’clock, she suggested we go out to eat.

“What’s got you down, love?” I asked when we were seated at the bistro. “Is it our lovers being back home?”

“Well, not exactly. I mean, sure I miss everyone. But ... Tony, this is our week, right?”

“Yeah, and aren’t you the lucky one. With both Kate and Lissa, I spent the entire week working and we didn’t have near as much time just being alone together,” I said. “You know, I miss the times when you used to sneak into my dorm room and spend the night—just the two of us cuddled together in a tiny bed.”

“That was sure some fun,” she said. “Is it okay for me to make a suggestion for our week? Or maybe even if I planned something and didn’t tell you about it? I mean, it is ours to spend as we want, right?”

“Meddy my love, this week is yours. I want to do anything you want to do. My big event is over and I’m feeling almost as sick of the art world as Kate is. If you say ‘go home’, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Oh, no. That’s not what I want at all.” She checked the clock on her cell phone. “Let’s walk around Times Square again.”

We made the walk around the triangle and stopped at the Two-Fer kiosks half a dozen times to see if any shows we wanted to see were still playing. I kind of wanted to see Wicked or Phantom of the Opera, but no tickets popped up for them. Melody checked her phone again and looked like she was reading a text message.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Silly. I’m tired of walking around. Let’s go back to the hotel. There’s still a couple places we haven’t tried.” There were?

We were laughing and making out in the elevator. No one else was around, so why not? We talked about pushing the emergency stop button and making love in the elevator, but we were both too chicken to do it. I couldn’t wait to get Melody into our room.

Melody backed me toward the bed while she stripped the clothes off me. I was doing my best to get her out of her pants when I fell back on the bed and heard the “Oof!” under me. I jerked around and watched as Bree pulled the blanket down from her face. She glanced at Melody and both girls yelled, “Surprise!”

“Oh, Melody! You brought me my favorite massage therapist!” I laughed. “You sneaky devils.” I looked from one to the other. “Uh ... does this mean you’d like me to get a different room?”

“What?”

“Does this look like I want you to get a different room?” Bree asked as she pushed the covers all the way off. There she lay in all her freckled and naked glory. I’d been hard when we came in the door and nothing I saw was making things any softer.

Melody had not been idle and when I looked back at her, she was as naked as Bree and crawling into the bed on the other side. “You’re overdressed,” she said. I stripped off as quickly as I could and slipped into the bed next to Bree. “I hope you aren’t too full from lunch,” Melody continued, “because we’re about to have a Bree sandwich.” I think Bree might have come right then.

Bree never managed to change positions when Melody and I both attacked her. The best she could do was writhe on the bed as she tried to hang on. It wasn’t that long before I was between her legs licking that highly flushed red snatch while Melody rode her lover’s face. Melody moved down into a sixty-nine, pushing my head out of the way and summoning me to knee-crawl up further. Her face came out of Bree’s pussy with a moan and dropped back down on my cock. Melody kept her fingers busy in Bree while she sucked me. We were all getting close.

“Mel, sweetheart, I’m about...”

Melody pulled off of me and grabbed my cock to point it at Bree’s pussy. I pushed and slid in all the way to the back of her opening. I heard Bree’s muffled squeal as Melody rose to kiss me and I began pumping into Bree. It wasn’t much in the way of lovemaking. I was barely in her when I started to come. And as soon as I quit jetting, Melody pushed at my hips to get me out of Bree and vacuumed my cock back into her mouth.

“No!” Bree moaned from between Melody’s legs. “Put it back. Please!”

“Make me come, Red,” Melody said. “Make me come and I’ll give you back your toy.”