and sweat and a shirt that had gone too long between washings, was part of the package; she might wrinkle her nose when she breathed in his scent, but that didn’t keep her from getting wet.
Now? Or later?
Either course held its attractions. She could hurry the two customers at the counter, then turn the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED and return to the kitchen. Look at him through half-lidded eyes, part her lips a little and run her tongue around them. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to give him the idea, given that he already had the idea, had had it the moment he laid those muddy brown eyes on her and let them linger.
She’d take off her panties before she went in there. Then just pull up her skirt and bend over the counter, and he’d be on her like a mongoose on a cobra. She imagined his hands on her, his cock deep inside her, her nostrils filled with the raw smell of him.
And in the afterglow, while he was catching his breath and thinking of all the things he’d soon get to do with his hot new waitress, she’d be well placed to finish what she’d started. It was a kitchen, there were knives and cleavers all over the place, and she’d grab one and put it where it would do the most good, and he’d be dead and she’d be gone. Back to her room and under the shower — God, she’d need a shower — and then goodbye Phoenix.
But what was her hurry? He’d want her even more if she gave him a taste and made him wait for the rest of it. Why strike while the iron was hot when all it could do was get hotter?
In the end, it was he who turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. “Okay, time to go,” he said to one old lag sitting with an empty cup of coffee and a newspaper another customer had left behind. And, as the old fellow got to his feet, “Hey, Joe, don’t be a cheap bastard. This is Carol’s first day, ain’t you gonna leave her a tip?”
Shamed into it, the man put a pair of quarters on the table. “Last of the big spenders,” Steve said, and scooped up the coins, presenting them to her like a cat depositing a dead mouse at its owner’s feet. And, with the window sign turned and the door bolted, he gave her a grin and motioned her into the kitchen.
She didn’t have to pretend to be excited when he handled her breasts and buttocks and ran a hand up between her legs. There was nothing artful about his technique, but the crudeness itself was exciting. Oh, one would tire of it soon enough, but for now—
“Not tonight,” she said.
He was a man who would indeed take no for an answer, but not until the fourth or fifth time he heard it. She’d fend him off and he’d go at her again, until at last he realized that no meant no. He let out a sigh and leaned back against the counter.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Tonight, it, uh, it wouldn’t be good. God, you’re exciting. I can’t wait until tomorrow, Steve.”
“So why wait?” He looked at her, then shrugged. “Never mind. I guess you got your reasons.”
He’d need her working noon to eight, he told her. He opened at 6:30 for breakfast, but his sister helped him out mornings. Maybe she might like to get there a little earlier tomorrow, he suggested. So they could go over some things together before the lunch crowd showed up. Say eleven?
Back at the hotel, she didn’t shower right away. Her room had two beds, and she stripped and got in one of them and pulled the covers all the way up, trapping his smell. She breathed it in while she touched herself, giving her fantasies free rein, holding herself back from the edge, then finally allowing herself the release of orgasm.
She’d have showered afterward, but sleep took her by surprise, and she slept deeply until dawn and woke up ravenous. She’d made herself a sandwich midway through her shift, but had gone to bed without supper. First, though, she needed that shower.
But was there any point? In a matter of hours she’d be smelling of him all over again.
She took the shower anyway. Nothing lasted, so why expect a shower to endure?
In a sense, the effects of the shower were gone by the time she got dressed. She put on the same skirt and blouse she’d worn the day before, not wanting to get his scent on a second outfit. She’d wear the same clothes, even if it meant walking around all morning with that musky odor on her, and after it was over she’d throw everything out.
Should she check out now? Take her bag to the bus station, stash it in a locker? That would get her out of town faster, but you couldn’t always find those coin-operated lockers. They’d been disappearing for a while now, to thwart dope dealers. And, she supposed, terrorists.
So should she take the suitcase to the diner? Or would that be suspicious? He might see it and think she was leaving town.
And if he did? Like, so what? It’s not as though the prospect of her imminent departure would make him any less eager to fuck her.
So that would work. She’d bring the bag along, stash it in the kitchen. And during the slow time before the lunch crowd showed up, she’d go in back and let him do what he wanted. And then she’d do what
With his smell all over her.
She’d need the room so she could shower and change. And she could afford to pay for a second night, but it went against the grain. She picked up the phone, rang the front desk, asked about a late checkout.
No problem, Ms. Perkins. Two o’clock all right?
Perfect, she said, and went out for breakfast.
She knew she didn’t want to eat at the diner, but she had to walk past it to get to the other nearby restaurants, and that gave her a chance for a look at Steve’s putative sister. The woman she saw through the window, carrying plates of eggs and bacon as if she’d been doing this since childhood, was short and stocky and dark-complected, with black hair and thick eyebrows. So she certainly might have been a sister, but she hadn’t believed it when he said it and was no more inclined to believe it now. She’d bet anything this beauty queen was Steve’s wife.
She walked on, found a place to eat with better lighting and a reassuring commitment to hygiene. She settled into a booth with a copy of the morning paper, ate a big breakfast, and drank two cups of coffee.
And smelled him on her clothes.
“Right on time,” he said.
There were two customers in the place, and one of them was the same man he’d run off the night before. Did the old fart live here? He looked to be wearing the same clothes, too — a forest-green work shirt worn through at one elbow, with a pair of baggy trousers that must have started life as the bottom half of a business suit.
Well, what else did she expect? She hadn’t changed her outfit, and neither, she was unsurprised to see, had Steve. Classy joint, the Stavro’s Diner. Everybody wears the same clothes forever, and nobody bathes, and they all smell about the same. Be a shame to say goodbye to a place like this.
And damned if Steve didn’t run the old boy off again, and the shrunken blue-haired woman at the corner table along with him. “Gotta close for a few minutes,” he told them. “Gotta go over a thing or two with Carol here.”
He ushered them out. And bolted the door, and fixed the sign. And, with a wolfish grin, beckoned her to the kitchen.
It smelled of eggs and grease and bacon, and of course of Steve himself. His hand cupped her shoulder and turned her toward him, and she hoped he wouldn’t kiss her. Some hookers, she knew, drew the line at kissing, objecting to it because it was somehow too intimate to be available for a price. She had never minded kissing men regardless of what she might have planned for them, and her objection now was purely aesthetic; she didn’t want to kiss him because she found him revolting.
But she definitely wanted to fuck him. He might disgust her, but he also turned her on something fierce.
His hands, clumsy but confident, touched and patted and stroked and squeezed. She realized with some relief that he was no more interested in kissing than she was. Maybe it was an intimacy he reserved for his wife, maybe he didn’t like to kiss a woman without a moustache.
And then, as she had fantasized earlier, he turned her around and pushed her face down toward the counter. It was topped with a butcherblock cutting board, and she smelled blood and meat, along with the musky sweat smell, the Steve smell.
