The Scarlet Letter Scandal (9 page)

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Kellie: Had breakfast with your wife.

Chaz: Oh geez how’d that go?

Kellie: It was like being summoned to the principal’s office.

Chaz: Welcome to my life.

Kellie: She knows about Rocks swingers’ club.

Chaz: I know, she yammered on about it for an hour afterwards.

Kellie: You didn’t tell me??

Chaz: I didn’t think she’d be all over it that quickly.

Kellie: Like she has anything better to do.

Chaz: PTA, HOA, church, the kids…she’s supposed to be busy.

Kellie: She’d much rather have coffee with Rachel and I declaring the sinful nature of our neighborhood.

Chaz: Does she know about the landscaping rocks?

Kellie: I don’t think so - she didn’t say anything. If she knew fake landscaping rocks meant swingers, she would have made you call an HOA meeting to remove them all.

Chaz: True. How was your lunch club meeting?

Kellie: Hot. Mycah and Feesh…

Chaz: Oh God don’t start giving me the details. I already feel a boner coming on.

Kellie: Well I wish you were here then, except I’m a little tired from today.

Chaz: Brandon wore you out?

Kellie: He and the girls did.

Chaz: I’m jealous.

Kellie: I know. But I need Brandon. Even his UDS salary saves my ass. I hate being broke.

Chaz: I wish I could help. I’m sorry.

Kellie: You help by being one part of my life that isn’t stressful.

Chaz: Maybe one day…

Kellie: Don’t even go there. Maybe one day, my ass. You have a wife who would kill both of us, and I already made it out of one marriage.

Chaz: It wasn’t your fault your husband was cheating on you with a guy from your club.

Kellie: That was awkward. But yeah, Michael turning up gay definitely wasn’t my fault.

Chaz: I miss you. I wish I was naked on an island with you somewhere right now.

Kellie: I miss you too and wow, yeah, sounds amazing. But I’m scared as shit of your crazy ass wife.

Chaz: Me too.

B
ack on Matthew’s Island, when Eva heard the tiny ping on her window, Eva got out of bed and walked across the small room, cursing when she slammed her toe on the post of the antique brass bed, not used to running in that direction in the pitch black. She opened the overly frilly curtains, thinking about how she couldn’t stand to get rid of them because they reminded her of her mother. She had a feeling about who might be pinging her window, but couldn’t imagine he would be so bold with people sleeping right upstairs.

Matthew’s Island was very dark. She loved the lack of light pollution she was accustomed to in New York and Washington, but it meant she couldn’t really see her visitor for sure. Open the window or call 911? Not a question you normally asked yourself every day. Well, the cell signal sucked on the island, so she figured she may as well open the window. The shadowy figure of the waterman drew closer and she could see his bright smile in the darkness.

“Are you stalking me?” whispered Eva, smiling in spite of herself. “I was practically asleep.”

Nathan walked closer to whisper through the screen, “I know you don’t fall asleep right away. But I hoped your friends would.”

Eva smiled, putting her finger in front of her mouth in the universal sign for
sshhh
.

“Want to go for a walk?” Nathan asked her in a whisper.

Eva looked down at her Victoria’s Secret babydoll nightgown and looked back out the window, calculating how many mosquito bites she’d get if she went out there at this time of year dressed like that. Shrugging her shoulders, she grabbed a tote bag and threw in a sweatshirt, tossing in the ever-present green plastic bottle of DEET-containing bug spray in case the flying insects were out in full force.

“I’ll be right out,” she said.

Tiptoeing through the front entryway and slipping on flip-flops, she snuck into the kitchen, adding a bottle of wine, an opener, and two red Solo cups to her bag.
Island style
, she thought, not wanting to clink wine glasses around. She stopped at the stairs to glance up, noticing that there was no light coming from the two small bedrooms above.

She felt like a high school kid. This behavior was more typical of her teenage twin sons than herself. She smiled, not caring. For once.

Nathan had parked his truck on the road, out of sight of the house. He leaned against the door, one foot crossed over the other, his arms crossed, smiling.
He looks like something out of a country music video
, she thought
. So sexy.
She felt a tingling sensation as she walked toward him, the night air whisking through her thin nightgown and between her legs.

“Are you going to be warm enough in… that?” he asked.

“I brought a sweatshirt,” she said, motioning toward the bag. He lifted the bag from her shoulders to carry it for her and smiled.

“Pretty heavy for a sweatshirt,” he said.

“Well, I didn’t want us to get thirsty,” she responded, and she took his hand.
The perfect distraction
. It was exactly how she considered her fling with the handsome waterman, who was younger than her by about a decade or so. Exactly what she needed after living through a divorce and the death of her mother over the past year. She pushed aside thoughts of her long-time lover, Charles the chef, in New York. He was a world away.

“You look great,” he said, leading her down the quiet road toward the fishing pier.

She gave him a funny look. “In the middle of the night?” she asked.

“Any time,” he said. Her tote bag over one shoulder, he placed his other arm around her, drawing her close against the summer bay breeze.

Nathan wasn’t much of a talker, so she appreciated his simple sentiment. There had been no “I love yous” or any drama; theirs was a very easy relationship based on physical connection and a shared desire to push away the ever-creeping feeling of loneliness. Nathan had been married years before, no children, and was divorced. His life on the water was solitary. He appreciated her company as much as she did his.

They walked in silence, catching glances of the moonlight reflecting on the water between the cottages that dotted the shoreline as they made their way toward the long pier that jutted out into the small cove between the river and the bay.

At the end of the pier, Nathan asked if she wanted her sweatshirt.

She put her hand out as if she did. He handed her the sweatshirt and she laid it out at the edge of the dock and placed the bag down on top of it. He motioned as though to remove the bottle of wine and open it. But she interrupted him by taking his face in her hands and kissing him full on the mouth. They kissed for a short time, quickly becoming hungry for one another.

He moved closer, wrapping his arms around her small waist and pulling her to him. He returned her kiss with passion and a quiet sigh. He turned her slightly so she was facing him and her lower back rested against one of the pier’s wooden pilings; this way he could press his arousal toward her. The thin nightgown she was wearing was very clearly driving him wild. He brushed his hands across her pert nipples, gently molding them into peaks.

She throbbed for him. Her breasts leaned in to his touch, her hips jutted forward to feel his hardness pressing intensely against her. She’d known she wanted him when she first saw him in the country store, and she’d continued wanting him ever since. Her hands found the stiff outline in his jeans and she decisively pressed her thumb along its ridge. He moaned softly. She grabbed his perfect ass with her other hand, squeezing it to bring him closer to her.

Their mouths explored one another’s. For a moment, she wondered if anyone from the shoreline houses would be able to see them, but the pure darkness, interrupted only by the reflection of the moon on the water in front of them, provided cover and she really didn’t care that much anyway.

Nathan slipped one hand beneath her nightgown, finding her pantiless, wet, and ready for his exploration, while the other hand remained on her breast, twisting it gently as he reached his head down to take it into his mouth.

Eva unzipped his jeans, wrapping her hands around his throbbing dick and easing it out of the fly. She softly caressed him, then with more urgency as he thrust toward her. She didn’t want splinters on her knees, so though it meant letting his hand fall away from her, she squatted down, taking him into her mouth. One hand stroked him as her tongue gently explored. She knew she could make him come in a very short time, something they didn’t have much of at the moment, but she wanted more.

She stood and he returned the favor, getting on his knees to pleasure her with his tongue. She ran her hands through his curly salt and pepper dark hair. After a few minutes, he stood and turned her around to face the water. Taking his aching member into his own hand, he pressed her rear gently with it. She reached behind her to grab his ass and pull him in closer. She wanted to feel all of it. He was taller by several inches, so he had to bend a bit to allow himself to feel the soft space between her legs. He circled his hips with slow thrusts that drove her insane. She placed her hands on the cool copper cap atop the wooden piling to allow leverage to push her hips toward him. He thrust into her again, holding her tight toward him. She arched her back a bit and sighed. It took only moments for them to come together, struggling not to yell out into the quiet Chesapeake Bay evening.

Silently, they returned to the sweatshirt and tote bag, sitting down on the edge of the dock and dangling their feet above the glistening water. He took out the wine, opened it, poured two cups, and handed one to her, smiling. The verbose lawyer in her wanted to say something to him, to thank him, to tell him how that brief but passionate encounter was simply perfect. But she had learned something from him. Sometimes, silence says it best.

M
aggie finished sweeping the Wings vintage clothing shop in Keytown, again. The refinished floors were gorgeous, bringing out the caramel-colored patina of the 1880s pine. But the sanding and staining and polishing had created a mess that seemed to go on forever. She’d worked all morning moving the racks of clothes back in (without scratching the new finish) which had created a whole new cleanup job.

Maggie began steaming a rack of vintage items that had been consigned that week. Soft hits of the ’70s and early ’80s played from the speakers Dave had hung on the shop’s four ceiling corners. Currently “Even the Nights are Better” by Air Supply played and she mouthed the words, not even realizing she did it.

She was relaxed from the weekend on the island. Since she’d been spending most nights at her old Victorian with Dave, she was having fewer “daymares,” the gripping panic attacks she’d been struggling with for years. She figured it was better for her to be sleeping with someone else than sleeping alone, which reminded her too much of her childhood nights spent wondering when her mother would come home, and nights in foster homes where she could hear unpleasant things from nearby rooms and through paint-chipped, seedy-neighborhood windows.