The Follower (16 page)

He was about to delete her e-mail and forget all about her, but then, remembering what Will had said about girls exchanging trade secrets, he decided he’d go out with her one more time. But if he didn’t score anally tonight, she’d be history.

At eight o’clock, he went to pick her up at her place. It was raining, which turned out to be key. He was psyched when she said she didn’t feel like going out in the bad weather and suggested ordering in Chinese instead. They’d finished their hot and sour soups and were into their steamed shrimp dumplings
when Andy leaned over the table and kissed her. They moved to the couch and he could tell she was really getting into it. Then she looked at him, smiling, and said, “Wanna build up an appetite?”

A minute later, they were in her bedroom, getting naked, then they started doing it. He got on top for a while, then she took over. She was bouncing around really hard, making a lot of noise, then she stopped. She bent over, kissed him, and said, “I like you so much,” and he said, “I like you so much, too.” He could tell this made her really happy because she started bouncing on him even harder. Then she came, her face turning pink and getting all scrunched up, so he knew she wasn’t faking.

Afterward, she collapsed onto her back, catching her breath, then said, “God, that felt great.” Then, a few seconds later, “How do you want me?”

Andy knew this was code. She wouldn’t come out and
say
she wanted to be fucked up the ass. No, no nice, normal girl would ever say something like that. But after last night, she knew what he wanted to do, and she wouldn’t’ve said, How do you want me? leaving the ball in his court, if she wasn’t ready for it. Yep, this was it, all right—his lucky day. Someday he’d look back on this, the way he looked back on the day he lost his virginity. He wanted to savor every second of this so he’d remember it clearly forever.

“From behind,” he said.

She turned over quickly, onto all fours.

“I mean with you flat on your stomach.”

She collapsed onto the bed, lying there, waiting for him. He knelt on top of her, knowing that in a few seconds everything would be different. From now on, his life would be divided into two parts—BAS (before anal sex), and A AS (after anal sex). He parted her butt cheeks carefully, but before he could do anything, Katie jerked forward, as if he’d tried to stab her, and said, “Hey.”

He was so caught up in trying to savor the moment that he didn’t even realize she’d said this, and continued what he was doing, until she said “Hey” again, almost yelling.

Then he stopped and said, “What’s wrong?” He wasn’t playing dumb. He’d been so convinced that they were on the same page that he honestly didn’t know what was the matter.

“I think you lost your sense of direction there for a second,” she said.

He wondered if she was being sarcastic, if she really wanted him to continue.

He decided to roll the dice.

“No, I didn’t,” he said.

He was about to try again but she squirmed away and said, “Come on. Stop kidding around.”

“What do you mean? I thought it was cool with you.”

“What was cool with me?”

“You never did it that way before?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Oh, I just thought…”

“That’s disgusting.”

It definitely didn’t sound like sarcasm anymore.

“Oh,” he said. “I just thought it’d be cool to try it one time.”

“Sorry. I’m just afraid it’ll hurt too much.”

“I promise I’ll be gentle.”

“I’m really not into it.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” he said, but couldn’t’ve been telling a bigger lie.

They had sex the normal way, but he was so distracted and angry, he almost lost his hard-on. He had to concentrate really hard, pretending she was one of the porn stars he’d seen on TV the other day, that Chinese one, in order to keep it up. Then, finally, after about five minutes, he finished. It was probably the lamest sex he’d ever had.

But by the way she cuddled up to him afterward and started kissing his face and neck, she didn’t seem to have any clue that all he wanted, more than anything in the world, was to get the hell out of there. He would’ve left right away, but he knew that would mess things up for Will and Amanda big-time, so he figured he wouldn’t let on that anything was wrong tonight, but then he’d break up with her the way he usually broke up
with girls, by e-mail or with a text message. He’d tell Katie he got back with his old girlfriend, or that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, or some crap like that.

He stayed for another hour or so, finishing dinner, and then he made up an excuse, telling her he had to go back home to do some stuff for work tomorrow.

“You know what would be cool?” she said. “If we could start leaving clothes at each other’s apartments. I mean, so we can stay over sometimes.”

“Yeah, that’s a really great idea,” he said, then he looked away, rolling his eyes, but making sure she didn’t see.

He kissed her goodbye, telling her he’d had a great time and couldn’t wait to see her again.

“Hey, you wanna go out tomorrow night?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll definitely call you,” he said, thinking, Yeah, like that was happening.

Finally, he was out of her apartment, by himself, a free man again. It had almost stopped raining. He wanted to find a girl, any girl to make him forget about the whole Katie debacle. Blondie’s on Second Avenue looked lame, so he went next door to the Big Easy and hit on the hot bartender. No luck there, so he positioned himself at the bar next to two girls. One of them was cute, one wasn’t. Most guys, in this situation, went after the cute one. Big mistake. The cute one usually had a boyfriend and was on a “mercy night out” with her single, not-as-cute friend. Andy knew if he started talking to the cute one he’d wind up buying drinks for her and her friend, and get absolutely nothing, not even a phone number. So Andy started talking to the so-so looking one—her name was Lynn—and things looked great for a while. She seemed really desperate and into him and he thought he was a shoo-in for at least a blow job. The problem was, the good-looking friend was just sitting there by herself. There must’ve been ten other single guys in the bar, and Andy couldn’t believe no one was coming over to help him out. Naturally, the pretty one felt uncomfortable alone and started pressuring the friend to leave with her. Andy could tell the friend wanted to stay, but the
pretty one kept bitching, and the friend finally gave in. Andy got the friend’s number, but he doubted he’d actually call her. He wasn’t looking for a date; he was looking to get laid.

He ordered another beer and scanned the bar. The ratio sucked. There were only two girls in the whole place and they were both on the fat side and they were both with guys. He figured he’d down his beer, then check out a couple of other bars on his way home or maybe just call it a night—he’d see how he felt—when he noticed a dark-haired guy with a goatee standing near the door. It was hard to tell for sure, but the guy seemed to be staring at him. Andy looked away a couple of times, then checked back, and the guy still seemed to be looking right at him.

Starting to get seriously pissed off, Andy glared at the guy, as if saying,
Stop staring at me, asshole
. The guy must’ve noticed, because he came over to Andy and, smiling widely, said, “Hi, don’t you remember me? Joe. Joe the Yankees fan.”

Andy squinted at the guy but
he didn’t look any more familiar.

“No, actually I don’t remember you.”

“Come on,” the guy said. “We met a couple of months ago at that bar on Third Avenue. Your name’s Andy, right?”

“Yeah,” Andy said, looking at the guy closely again, trying to see if something rang a bell.

“And you’re a big Phillies fan, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Come on, you remember me. It was late, we were talking near the bathroom. We were both pretty drunk, too.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I remember now.” Actually, the guy only looked slightly more familiar, but Andy figured he must’ve met him before and was just blanking. “What’d you say your name was?”

“Joe.”

“Joe?”

“Yeah, Joe.”

Now that they were talking, Andy didn’t get the weird vibe so much anymore; actually Joe seemed like a pretty cool dude. “So how’s it going, man?”

“Pretty good, pretty good,” Joe said. “So you got that girl’s number, huh?”

“You mean the ugly one?”

“She didn’t seem so ugly.”

“You were twenty feet away, dude. Trust me, there were big problems up close.”

“Then why’d you get her number?”

“You mean this?” Andy took out the little piece of paper with her number on it, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it away over his shoulder. “I’m not gonna waste my time with that shit.” He sipped his beer, then looked around. “Man, I can’t believe how lame the talent is here tonight. There’s usually a ton of tuna here, you know?”

“You’re looking to get laid tonight, huh?”

“I already got laid,” Andy said. “Now I wanna get fucked.”

Andy was trying to be funny and expected Joe to laugh, but Joe didn’t have any reaction. Andy thought maybe the guy didn’t hear him—the music was kind of loud—but then Joe said, “Why’s that?”

“Because it sucked, that’s why,” Andy said.

“Why did it suck?”

The Q and A was becoming a bummer.

“It’s a long story, you know? This girl…she’s just been stringing me along, you know, wasting my time.”

Joe stared, then said, “Yeah, don’t you hate that?”

“Yeah, it fuckin’ sucks, dude.” Andy downed some more beer, then put the bottle down hard on the bar. “Well, it’s time to blow this place. I’m gonna see if there’s any talent at Brother Jimmy’s. Nice running into you again, bro.”

Andy was about to get up when Joe said, “If you really want to get fucked tonight, I can help you out.”

Andy looked at him, wondering,
Whoa, is this guy an ass bandit or what?

But then, thinking Joe didn’t
seem
like the fudgepacking type, Andy said, “Yeah, how’re you gonna do that?”

“This might come out the wrong way—”

“As long as it doesn’t go in the wrong way.”

The guy was staring at Andy, didn’t seem to get it.

“I’m not gay, dude,” Andy said.

Joe smiled, then said, “No, I didn’t think you were. Here’s the deal—I’m married, okay? To a beautiful woman. A model, actually. You might’ve seen her before. You heard of Cleara?”

“No.”

“Well, she’s a very famous model. She was on the cover of German
Vogue
last month. She’s Brazilian, but she’s really big in Europe. She was in the
SI
swimsuit issue last year.”

“I have that issue at home. Was she on the cover?”

“No, she didn’t make the cover…unfortunately. There was a shot of her on the beach, near some rocks. She was wearing a skimpy thong bathing suit, but it was coming off, so she had her hands over her breasts like this.”

Joe demonstrated.

“She sounds hot,” Andy said.

“Yeah, she’s
very
hot,” Joe said. “Anyway, we don’t have the—it’s always hard for me to say this—the most typical marriage in the world. See, she likes it when I, like, bring guys home for her.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, I swear to God. It’s a big turn-on for her. That’s why I go to bars. Not to try to pick up girls, but to pick up guys.”

Andy had heard about shit like this. A buddy of his in high school claimed he’d met a woman in the mall one day who used to invite him over to her place to fuck while her husband watched.

“Don’t you get jealous?” Andy asked.

“No, I actually enjoy it.”

“You enjoy watching guys fuck your wife?”

“No, no, I’m never in the room. She tells me all about it later. Anyway, if you’re interested, you’re exactly her type. How old are you?”

“Twenty-three, but—”

“Yeah, that’s perfect. She’s twenty-eight, but she loves young, clean-cut guys. Were you in a fraternity in college?”

“Yeah, Delta Kappa Epsilon, but I—”

“Yeah, she’s gonna love you. So what do you say? We live right over on East End Avenue, in a penthouse overlooking the river. We can be there in five minutes.”

“Sorry, dude,” Andy said. “I mean, it sounds great and everything, but—”

“I know this might sound weird to you, but I’m telling you, it’s the truth. I wish I had a picture with me to show you, but
trust me, she’s unbelievably good-looking. And all the guys I bring back for her leave very, very satisfied.”

“I believe you, dude,” Andy said. “But, I don’t know—”

“Hey, if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. I don’t think you realize what you’re missing, but I’m not gonna push it. But, hey, it was nice running into you again. See you around, I guess.”

Andy watched Joe go over to two guys sitting at a table and start talking to them. The guys seemed into what Joe was saying and Andy figured he was giving them the same offer. Usually, if a guy came up to him at a bar and told him about his beautiful Brazilian model wife who liked to screw other guys, Andy would’ve thought the guy was full of shit, but Joe seemed for real. Then Andy wondered what the hell he was doing, letting this major opportunity pass him by. Shit, this could’ve been one of those once-in-a-lifetime type things, something that fell from the sky right into his lap, and if he let it get away he might spend the rest of his life wondering
What if?
Maybe things not working out tonight with Katie was the best thing that could’ve happened. Maybe he was meant to run into Joe and go have sex with the model. Maybe she was wild in bed and would do everything, even have anal sex with him. He would have to be out of his mind to not at least check this thing out.

Andy went over to Joe, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Okay, I’ll go.”

“You sure?” Joe asked. “Because these guys—”

“No, I’m in,” Andy said.

They went outside.

“So where did you say you live?” Andy asked.

“East End Avenue, right near Carl Schurz Park,” Joe said. “It’s not far.”