The Bedtime Tales of Be287m

Friends and Benefits, Chapter Twenty-five

By the time the waitress left, I knew what words I wanted to use.  I looked at Sherri and smiled.

“It feels like there are some things missing from your story,” I said.  “For one, it’s hard to believe you became a prostitute because of a noble goal of helping screwed-up men who aren’t screwed up enough to see a shrink.  There have to be a handful of other ways to help them that don’t involve selling your body.”

She snorted.  “I’m not selling my body.  No more than an athlete or actor sells theirs.  I get paid for my skill in using it and it’s insulting to imply that it’s just my body.”

“I apologize for the insult,” I said, my voice still firm.  “It wasn’t intended.”  My gut fluttered, but I refused to let it pull me into backing down.  “Let me rephrase.  There have to be other ways to help men then becoming an escort.”

“True, but they aren’t as effective.”

I looked down at my plate for a moment.  I could feel my frustration building, but I couldn’t give into it, any more than I could to fear.

“So why didn’t you mention them?” I asked finally.  “Did you spend any serious time looking into them?”

“I considered some other choices,” she said.  “But, like with being a surrogate, I didn’t feel any calling.”

“Aha,” I said.  “There’s that word again.  You make it sound religious, but no religion embraces prostitution.”

“That’s not true,” she said.  “in fact, prostitute priestesses were common in several early religions, like the Canaanites.”

“What?” I said, feeling like I’d just missed a curve ball.

“The Canaanites, from the Bible.  They were neighbors of the Israelites and they practiced sacred prostitution in their temples to Astarte.  It’s one of the things the prophets were always railing against.  Although I think that had far more to do with politics than immorality.  Yahweh was certainly selective about what was considered moral.”

I looked at her with surprise.

“Read your Bible, Joe.  Yahweh regularly killed people for the smallest of slights, like stumbling into the Ark of the Covenant.  He even ordered the genocide of the Midianites because some of the Israelites were sleeping with Moabite women.  Though some say that was Moses and not Yahweh. In fact—”

“Is this another soap box?” I asked. “Because I didn’t actually ask about Yahweh.”

Sherri flushed.  Then she chuckled and shook her head.  “I’m sorry.  I guess I get worked up about some things.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said.  “In fact, the passion is admirable.  The problem is….”  I bit my lip while I searched for the words.

“Yes?”

I smiled.  “I’m picking my words carefully.”  I thought a little longer before I had it.  “The problem is, sometimes passionate people don’t do a good job of really listening.  They already know the answers, or what they want the answers to be.”

“I do a good job of listening.”

“You do,” I said.  “At least most times, and probably with most clients.  But you misread me, didn’t you?  You projected suicidal tendencies onto me, because of your brother.”

Sherri fell silent.  Our dessert arrived then, and she took a bite, chewing slowly.

“And that’s not the only example,” I said.  “There were a handful of times when I was sharing my story where you told me what the answers were.  What if you were wrong?”

“Was I?”

“Most of the time, no.  But some of the time, yes.  And I didn’t stand up to you and tell you when you were.”

Sherri chuckled.  “Is that what you’re doing now?”

“Yes,” I said.  Who would have thought it?  “Don’t get me wrong, you’ve done an incredible job, and I appreciate the help.  But I think you’ll be a better ‘counselor’ and I’ll be a better, well, human being, if I do speak up.”

“True.”

“But we’re also off topic,” I said.  “I asked about your ‘calling’ to become an escort.  I don’t think it was because you’d decided to revive the worship of some dead biblical goddess, so tell me more about it.”

Sherri paused and then nodded.

“Have you ever had a strong gut feeling that you needed to do something?” she asked.  “An intuition, except you felt it in your body as well as your mind?”

I nodded.

“Well, that’s what it was like.  When I tried meditating, it just felt stronger.”

“Did you talk to anyone about it?”

She frowned.  “I mentioned it to a couple of my friends in school.”

“But not your mom, or your friend Susan?”

“No.  Though my mom’s probably figured it out by now, and she wouldn’t disapprove anyway.  She worked a little with COYOTE on sex worker rights several years ago.  They advocate decriminalization of prostitution.”

I raised an eyebrow.  Sherri caught it, but decided to ignore it.

“I read a novel once,” I said, “that dealt with discernment.  Glamorous Powers, by Susan Howatch.  The main character has a psychic vision in the first chapter, but he and his spiritual advisor spend a third of the book trying to discern whether it’s from God, from the Devil, or from his own unconscious.”

“Are you implying I made my call up?”

I shook my head.  “I’m just wondering what you did for discernment, if you didn’t talk to anyone.”

“I made the right choice,” she said, her nostrils flaring slightly.

I paused.  I didn’t need to push her any further.  This wasn’t about winning a debate, after all.

“You’re probably right,” I said.  “And, at least with me, your ‘calling’ made quite a difference.  Can you imagine what would have happened if one of the strippers from Allen’s bachelor party had showed up instead of you, that night?  She would have tried to ‘rock my world.’”  I couldn’t help grinning.

Sherri chuckled.  “I’m really glad I was wrong, you know.  About your being suicidal.”

“I’m glad you were wrong too,” I said.  “If you’d figured it out the first night, I’m not sure you would have stuck around, and I did need your ‘ministering.’”

We smiled knowingly at each other.

“So,” she asked.  “Is that all?”

“No,” I said.  “But we can talk about other things now.”

Sherri nodded and noticeably relaxed.  She leaned back in her chair and gazed at me for a moment.

“Have you figured out whether you want Tina or Sharon back?” she asked.

I sighed.  “Not entirely.  I’ve had a hard time sorting out my feelings.  I mean, I do have deeper feelings for Tina than I’d ever let myself admit.  But is it love?  I don’t know.  I feel guilty, and ashamed, but I also really miss her.  I’ve been wondering more and more about what could have been if I had just let myself really love her.”

I took a deep breath.

“You know I’m going to have to talk to her father,” I said, “if I want to get her back.  I terrified of doing that.”

“But you can do it.”

I nodded.

“And Sharon,” I continued, “I’d be lying if I said I still don’t want to sleep with her.  But I’m also pissed at her.  On the one hand, it feels weird to not be talking to her every week, and I catch myself thinking of things I want to tell her during our next phone call.  On the other hand, ever since Alicia and I broke up, it was a strange friendship, in some twilight between being purely platonic and dating.  There are times, since the blow-up, where I thought that maybe I loved her too, and I wasn’t being honest with myself to deny it.  But it doesn’t feel the same as when I think about Tina.”

“Why should it?”

“Well, I don’t know.  I mean, if I love them both….”

“What do you mean by ‘love’?”

I paused and stared at Sherri for a moment.  Then I got her point.

“It’s one of those words, isn’t it?” I said.  “That have so many meanings that it’s ultimately meaningless.”

She nodded, grinning.  “You can say you love wine, but it doesn’t mean the same thing as loving your parents.”

“Or loving your girlfriend.”  I nodded and started chuckling. “Or loving your dog.”

Sherri laughed.  “Well, for most people those are two different meanings.”

“Thank goodness,” I said, rolling my eyes.  I let our temporary merriment fade before speaking again.  “So, how do you define love?”

“Me, personally?”

I nodded.

“I like to use the Greek definitions.  Philios, Eros, and Agape.”

“Ah, brotherly love, erotic love, and divine love.”

“I actually prefer to define Eros as romantic love.  Any of them can be tinged with the erotic.”

“Really?”

“Sure.  Sex is an act.  Love is an emotion.  They can go together in a lot of combinations.”

I started to object, but then I thought about the sacred prostitutes she’d mentioned.

“Okay,” I said.  “I’ll grant that.  But ‘erotic’ is more than the sex act.  It’s more of a mood or a description.”

She nodded.  “It’s an adjective.  Which means it can go with any noun.  You can have an erotic friendship, an erotic romance, or an erotic experience of the Divine.”

I snorted.  “I think my Sunday School teacher would be shocked.”

Sherri grinned.  “Probably.”

“Then it’s a good thing she’s not here,” I said with a smile.  “But… I’m not sure how those definitions help me.”

“Well,” she said, her professorial tone returning, “you can use them to sort out your feelings.  Spend a little time thinking about how you’d define love and maybe you’ll figure out how you really feel about Tina and Sharon.”

“Hmmm.”  I paused to savor the idea.  While I was thinking about it, Sherri checked her watch.

“I need to get going, Joe.  I have another appointment tonight.”

“You do?”  I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

She nodded.  “And he’s a regular, so I don’t want to be late.”

I considered asking her about him, but decided that she wouldn’t answer anyway, so I just nodded.

“Thanks for the meal.”

“Sure.”

I motioned the waitress for the check.  After paying the bill, I followed Sherri back to the entrance.  She turned and faced me then.

“I’d like to continue talking,” I said, “if we can get together again.”

“Sure.  When?”

I grimaced.  “When I have the money.  Unless… we can make some other arrangement.  Like I could cook for you.”

She paused and cocked her head to one side.

“Besides,” I said, “you don’t want to cut off your ‘ministering’ in the middle, even if I’m not suicidal.”

Sherri snorted softly.

“C’mon,” I cajoled.  “It’s not like I’m asking you to fix things for me.  I just need someone to bounce ideas off of.  In exchange, well, food is probably my best bribe.”

Sherri chuckled.  “Okay.  I’ll think about it and call you tomorrow.”

“Great.”

I suspected she already had my phone number courtesy of the agency, but decided to give it to her again to be safe.  Once she’d confirmed that she could read it, we hugged and said our goodbyes.

The drive home found me surprisingly elated.  I caught myself singing along to the radio and just laughed at myself.  So this is what it feels like when I stand up for myself.

Because I had, really.  Not just when I told her that I thought she wasn’t telling me the whole story, but also that she’d be wrong sometimes in making assumptions.  I let out a deep breath, and almost trembled at the memory.  It wasn’t a big act of bravery in the grand scheme of things, but it still felt exhilarating.

Maybe that’s where the thrill of battle came from, I mused.  By conquering their fears at Agincourt, Henry’s men truly could say they were one of “we few, we happy few.”  Or whatever the exact quote was.

The giddy adrenaline faded away by the time I reached my apartment.  I’d been musing about that Henry V quote, so I decided to pull out the play and check it.  I’d remembered it correctly, but rereading the St. Crispin’s Day speech led to me reading more of the play, until eventually the yawns caught up to me and I retired for the night.

•  •  •

I slept late the next morning, waking from dreams of sword fights and dark-haired damsels in long dresses and no underwear.  I was just about to slay the dragon when it morphed into a clone of me, startling me so much I dropped my shield. That’s when I woke up.

I didn’t know exactly when Sherri would call, but since I didn’t have anything particular to do this Saturday, I decided I could stay around the house until she did.  I cleaned and did laundry and was just starting to do some meal planning when the phone rang.

“Joe, this is Sherri.”

“Hi!”

“I’ve got an overnight client tonight, and my roommate is planning on having her own guest, so I don’t want to head home too early in the morning.  Want to fix me brunch?”

“I’d love to.  When?”

“Is nine too early?”

“Not at all.”

“Good.  I look forward to seeing how your ideas bounce.”

I chuckled.  “Hopefully like a rubber ball and not a brick.”

She laughed.  “Hopefully.”

We hung up and I started thinking about what ideas I did want to bounce off of her.  Now that my cooking skills had earned me a counselor—well, really a consultant—I’d knew I had to make good use of her time.

I let our conversation from the night before wander in and out of my conscious thoughts as I shopped and then baked muffins for the next day.  Agape, eros, philios.  How exactly did those mix, in my feelings toward Sharon and Tina?  It wasn’t easy to sort out, because the sex kept clouding my vision.  Even when I could push my desire aside, my feelings were a swirling mix.  I wanted the women to be happy.  I wanted them to be with me, in some form or another.  I wanted some things to be the same as they had been and I wanted a lot of things to be better.

Toward dinner, I realized I was starting to go in circles again, my brain plowing new ruts about what I wanted and how I felt.  After doing the dishes, I decided another walk to the 7-Eleven was in order to help clear the fog.

I wasn’t figuring out how I felt.  I wasn’t figuring out what I wanted.  I kept banging my head against my own heart and not finding any answers.  What was wrong with me?

I was so lost in thought that I almost collided with a grizzled old guy at the door to the 7-Eleven.

“Excuse me,” I said, pulling back just two steps before I would have hit him.  “I wasn’t looking.”

“Young people,” he said with a scowl, “never looking out for other people.  Always selfish.”

I blinked but didn’t say anything.  He shuffled down the walk without looking back and I headed into the store.

I thought about his words as I scratched my lottery ticket.  Were young people always selfish?  Was I always selfish?

My thoughts were interrupted when I realized I’d won two dollars.  I immediately cashed the ticket in, rather than exchange it for two more.  A little richer for the walk, I headed home.

The walk back found my mind a mélange of the old ruts of wanting Tina and Sharon mixed with the newer fog of the conversation with Sherri and the occasional flash of the old man’s words.  I had certainly been selfish with Sharon and Tina, but not always.  The aborted threesome, of course, had been a huge sinkhole of selfishness, but that didn’t define the relationships.  Up until then, I’d balanced things out a little better—supporting Sharon in her troubles getting over Allen, and, well, I’d at least treated Tina better on other occasions.  Now everything was blotted out by the big black ink stain of that night together.

So how did I erase that stain?

I sighed.  The answer was logically obvious.  I needed to be unselfish.

That would be hard.  It was an inherent Catch-22, after all.  I couldn’t be unselfish while hoping for a reward.  Whatever I did had to be done solely because it was the right thing to do.

That was going to be tough.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to do it alone.  Sherri would be by in the morning.

•  •  •

A distant siren interrupted the dance between Falstaff and the grizzled old man.  At first I thought it was the metaphor police, so I turned off my computer, but as the scene slowly faded, I realized I was dreaming and the noise was the phone.  Groggily, I reached for it.

“Hello?” I asked, glancing at the clock. It was two in the morning.

“Joe?   This is Sherri.  Can I come over early?”

“Huh?  Sure.”  I was still too groggy for this to make sense.

“Thanks.  I’ll explain when I get there in about forty-five minutes.”

The line clicked and went dead.

I rubbed my eyes to convince myself that I truly was awake.  Since I was, the phone call had to be real.  I slowly pulled myself out of bed to prepare for my company

I had decaf coffee brewed by the time Sherri knocked on the door.

“Thanks for letting me come over,” she said, walking quickly past me into the living room.

I did a double-take.  Her hair was a mess and her clothes were wrinkled.  She wasn’t truly disheveled, but I’d never seen her with even the slightest thing out of place.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I will be.  I need to clean up.  Can I use your shower?”

“Sure.  What happened?”

Sherri began unbuttoning her blouse.  “My client crossed a line and I had to leave.”  She held the blouse up and inspected it.  She wasn’t wearing a bra, to my surprise.

“What’d he do?”

“He’s a regular,” she said, carefully laying her blouse across the arm of the couch.  “He knows I don’t do incest fantasies.  But after we’d finished having sex, he asked me to pretend to be a teenage girl.  He kept pushing, despite me saying no.”  She paused to pick her purse back up and extract her stockings, bra, and panties, which she then laid out carefully next to the blouse along the back of the couch.  “I told him our date would have to end if he kept asking, and he grabbed my arm, trying to keep me there.”

“Did he hurt you?” I asked, alarmed.

She shook her head.  “I know self-defense.  He would have lost his balls if he’d actually tried to hurt me.”  She unzipped her skirt and let it fall.  Stepping out of it, she inspected it before placing it near the other clothes.

I found myself horribly distracted.  On the one hand, I wanted to pay close attention to her words.  On the other, I was having a hard time not staring at her body.  I swallowed and forced myself to raise my eyes above her neck, just in time for her to look up at me.

“I really wish he hadn’t done that,” she said with a sigh. “He was a good client, and now I can’t see him again.”

“Why not?”

“Because I told him if he didn’t let me go immediately, I wouldn’t see him again.  Consequences have to be enforced.”

“But he did let you go.”

“Not immediately.”

“Oh.”

Sherri turned and headed for the hall.  “Can we continue this while I shower?”

“Sure.”

I entered the bathroom to see Sherri bent over, adjusting the faucet.  This time I did pause to admire her body.  Great views like this did not deserve to be wasted.

She glanced back over her shoulder.  “I probably don’t like it as hot as you do, but I do like it hot,” she said.

“Let me see,” I said.

She shifted out of the way so I could stick my hand under the running water.

“Not as hot as I’d like, but not bad,” I said.

She grinned.  “Excuse me.”

I stepped out of her way, pulled the toilet lid closed and sat on it, while she stepped into the tub and pulled the shower curtain shut.  She let out an “ahh” after flipping the knob to start the overhead spray.

“So,” I asked.  “This guy screwed up.  Any chance he can fix it?”

“Probably not,” she said.

“That’s too bad.”

“Well, probably not with me.  Hopefully he’ll learn something so he won’t screw it up with the next woman.”

“Ah.  If there is a next woman, of course.”

“What do you mean?  There are plenty of escort agencies—oh, we’re not talking about my client anymore, are we?”

“Not entirely,” I said.  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my own situation, and I’m not sure I can fix it.  I screwed up pretty badly.”

“Well, you may not be able to.”

“I know.  And part of me wants to just write it off and not try.  But that would be running away.  Besides, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”

Sherri didn’t reply.  I waited for a little while, but when it was obvious she was waiting for me, I continued.

“I’m not sure what the right thing is, of course,” I said, “but I’ve got a couple of ideas.  What would be the right thing for your client to do?”

“Give me a minute.  Can I use your shampoo?”

“Sure,” I said.  I leaned back, thinking about what might be the right thing if I were in Sherri’s client’s shoes.  I’d definitely start with an apology, like I’d done with Tina and Sharon.  Except they wouldn’t listen to me any more than Sherri would listen to her client.  Saying I was sorry wasn’t enough to convince them to come back.  Except…

Except apologizing was the right thing to do.

Sherri’s client had screwed up, and he needed to start by admitting it and showing remorse.  I’d admitted it, but had I really showed remorse?

That was where I needed to start, I realized.  Not with some ‘please take me back’ whiny phone call, but with a deep, truly remorseful apology.

I let out a deep sigh just as Sherri turned the water off.

“What?” she asked.

“I just realized what I need to do,” I said.

She opened the curtain and reached for a towel.  I decided I might as well enjoy the view and didn’t glance away.  Her slick skin glistened under the light, and little rivulets ran from her hair down her arms and chest.  She looked at me expectantly.

“I need to apologize,” I said, “but not because I want them back, but because I owe it to them.”

She nodded.  “That’d be a good start.”

“Yeah, it would.  Would it work for you?”

“If you sincerely apologized to me?”

“If your client did.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment as she continued to dry herself.  “Maybe,” she said as she began working on her hair.  “Except he knew, he knew I didn’t do incest fantasies.  And he pushed anyway.”

“Well, he screwed up.  Maybe he got caught up in the moment like I did.”

She shrugged but didn’t answer.

“So what’s wrong with incest fantasies?” I asked.

“They’re too much of a slippery slope to child abuse.”

I frowned.  She’d just tossed off that answer by rote.

“I don’t know about that,” I said.  “Incest and pedophilia aren’t the same thing.  Like sex and love.  They can mix, but they’re not the same thing.”

She stopped drying her hair and stared at me.

“Sorry,” I said, “bad analogy.  But they’re not, and I think you know that, given how much you’ve studied sex.”

Sherri slowly dabbed her arms and hung the towel up.

“So what’s the real reason?” I asked.  “Were you sexually abused as a kid?  Supposedly a lot of escorts are.”

She snorted.  “That’s more myth than fact.”  She picked up a comb and started working on her tangles, facing the mirror.  She made stiff strokes, her body tense.

“Okay.”  I bit my lip and just watched Sherri working out the knots in her hair.  I couldn’t imagine she’d been abused, but she still wasn’t telling me the full story.  I needed more information.

“So what exactly did your client want you to do?” I asked.

Sherri didn’t speak for a good four or five strokes of her comb.  She seemed to get more tense with each breath.  Finally, she looked at me.

“He wanted to roleplay an incest fantasy.”

“What type?  Mom?  Daughter?”

“Big sister,”  she said through clenched teeth.

Oh.  “Of course.  And you couldn’t do it because of what you did with your brother.”

“I never did anything with Danny!” she snapped, shaking her comb at me.

“Uh, sorry.  I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“So what did happen?”

Sherri sagged against the sink.  Setting her comb down, she took a deep breath before facing me.

“A couple of weeks before… that night, Danny came to me and asked me to teach him about sex.  I refused, telling him he was on his own.  I didn’t even give him a book to answer his questions.  I….”  She took a deep breath.  “I was just too uncomfortable talking about sex with my baby brother.”

Her body shuddered in a silent sob.

“It’s not your fault,” I said.  I stood, but she didn’t seem to want a hug.

She nodded.  “I know, but it’s hard to believe it sometimes.”

“Can I do anything to help?”

She pursed her lips in a small smile.  “Thanks, but I think what I want right now is just to get some sleep.”

“I’ll go get the bed ready.”

She turned back to the mirror and picked up the comb again as I headed back into the living room. As I unfolded the sleeper sofa, I pondered her situation.  Her answer about her brother felt more real, more solid, than her initial practiced response.

And a hell of a lot more painful.

As much as I’d been blind to Tina’s feelings, Sherri’s blindness to her brother had been far more disastrous.  It was oddly comforting to know I wasn’t the only one second-guessing what I’d done.  But, unlike me, she couldn’t undo them and she couldn’t make it up to Danny.  The guilt had to be enormous.

Except that it really wasn’t all her fault.  Her mom, her ‘aunts,’ and even the girl and the other kids in school all had their share of the blame.  Even Danny himself bore some of the responsibility. He could have chosen something else, run away, perhaps.  No one had put the razor in his hand.

I retrieved clean sheets and blankets and put them on the bed.  Sherri walked in, nude, and helped me with the last corners.  I turned to her.

“You know,” I said, “if you just want to go home and cancel our plans for breakfast, that’s okay.”

“I can’t,” she said.  “My roommate’s mother is staying at our place.  If I showed up now, it would raise questions that none of us really want raised.”

“Does your roommate know what you do?”

“Of course,” she said.  “She’s come with me on a couple of jobs.  Though usually she just answers the phones.  When she’s working, of course.  Her course load’s been pretty heavy recently.”

“Huh.”

“It’s okay, Joe.  I’m fine.  I just need to get some sleep.”

“I understand.  It is late.”

“And you’ve been a dear, letting me come over at this hour.”

I glanced at the clock.  It was a little after three.

“That’s okay,” I said.  “Do you want me to sleep in my own bed tonight?”

She shook her head.  “You can join me.”

“Skin to skin?”

“Of course.”

I shed my boxers and t-shirt while Sherri climbed under the blankets.  She rolled on her side as I slid in beside her.  I gently eased up next to her, spooning her.  She took my hand in hers and held it between her breasts, our fingers interlaced.  Nestled against her ass, my cock stiffened, but I was too tired to let it rise to a full erection.  Sherri felt it, though, and stirred.

“In the morning, okay?  I’ll thank you properly then.”

I snorted softly.   Just cuddling with a woman who wasn’t mad at me was thanks enough.

--Fin--

© 2006, all rights reserved.

Read the next chapter in this story: Chapter Twenty-six

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