The Ugly One
by be287m

Chapter Four

I spent most of my waking hours during the week after the party replaying it in my mind.  I didn’t spend too long second guessing myself about Billy or the other kids, but I couldn’t get past how I’d interacted with the women.  Tamara had introduced me to how many women?  Four?  Five?  I couldn’t remember the number, much less their names.  Angie was the only one that stood out and that conversation hadn’t gone well.

Of course I talked to my therapist about it.  She got under my skin.  Every time I described how a woman had turned away from me at the party, she’d interrupt me.  Had the woman really turned away from me, or had I turned away from her?  Had they made an effort to have a conversation with me or not?  Angie had tried, I realized.  She had tried to have a conversation with ugly freakish me and I’d been too crappy a conversationalist to let it happen.

A notion that Tamara challenged the next time I was over for dinner.

“Did you ask her any questions?” she wanted to know as we sat talking in the living room, Billy banging away with the dishes in the other room.

“Well, yes.  I asked her about her costume.  Oh, and whether she had a kid at the party.”

“That’s good,” Tamara reassured me.

“Then we got cut off by the commotion in the backyard,” I said.

“So you had good reason to not finish the conversation,” she commented.

“Well, I could have talked to her again on the porch.”

“True.  Why didn’t you?”

My gut wrenched.  This was feeling way too much like another therapy session.  I didn’t want to be having a therapy session with Tamara.  I wanted to be . . . 

“I dunno,” I said, cutting off that train of thought.  I started flailing, because I realized I couldn’t really answer her question.  Tamara’s face was expressionless.  I must have looked more pathetic than I thought.

“John,” she began, “I was talking with her.  You could have joined us but you wandered off.”

“I know, I know.  I could have.  It’s just . . .” I hung my head.  I almost snorted at the irony.  Sometimes I couldn’t stop the words from coming out.  Now I couldn’t get them out at all.

Tamara put her arm around me.  Somehow she knew not to ask anything more.  She started stroking my upper arm--a gentle caress that reminded me of our time in Nevada.  I let out a deep breath.

“Sometimes it’s easier not to try,” I finally said.  “That way I can’t get rejected for my looks.”  She held me tighter.  “I wish you could understand what that’s like, to be rejected for your looks.”

“What do you think happens in a line-up?” she asked sharply, pulling away from me.  I looked at her in confusion.

“A customer comes into the brothel and asks for a line-up,” she continued.  “He’s probably going to decide in a few minutes whether to party with me or another girl.  He hasn’t talked to us.  He hasn’t interacted with us in the parlor.  What does he have to go on other than looks?

“There are a lot of line-ups where I don’t get picked, John.  And if I don’t get picked, I don’t earn my tuition money.”  I met her eyes.  They burned in back, like coals freshly stoked.

“The reviews can be worse though,” she said.  “Sure, I get a lot of good reviews on the Nevada brothels boards, but the bad ones . . . one guy wrote that I was pudgy.”  My mouth dropped open.  The guy must have been looking for Kate Moss to think that Tamara was fat.  “Another guy wrote that I had a bad attitude, when what really happened was that I refused to blow him without a condom.

“And then there’s Billy.  Do you think I don’t feel everything he goes through?  Every cut, every insult, every rejection?”

Tamara seemed more angry with the memories.  She turned her head away.  I put my arm around her.  She gently pushed it off.  She took a deep breath, which seemed to calm her.  Then she met my eyes again.

“I understand rejection for looks, John.  What I don’t understand is self-pity.”  With that she stood up.

“I’m going to go check on Billy,” she said.  Then I was alone in the living room.

What the fuck?  I’d reached out to Tamara for support and sympathy and she’d all but slapped me in the face!  Hey, I’d tried to talk to those women!

Yeah, right.  Hadn’t I just admitted that I hadn’t really tried?

I ground my fingers into my thigh, and began balling my hands into fists and then noticing it and releasing them.  I was still stewing when Billy ran into the room.

“John!  John!  Let’s go play!”

His smile was wide and I didn’t want to make it go away, so I let myself be pulled back to his bedroom where a MechWarrior fort was already under construction out of notebooks and other school supplies.  At first, I just hid my simmering emotions, but as we played, they seemed to dissipate.  How could I stay angry when a ten year old was making shooting noises as he marched robotic men across the floor?  I started smiling when the hisses of rockets and resulting kabooms began.  We played for a long, long time.

“Time for bed, Billy,” Tamara said from the doorway.  I checked my watch.  It had gotten later than I’d thought.  Billy protested and whined, more for form than anything else.  When it became clear that I was indeed leaving, he dutifully began putting his toys away.  I said goodnight to him and headed into the hall, Tamara a step behind.

When we got to the door, she stopped me.

“I’m sorry I was harsh, John,” she said.  “It’s just that you’re not the only one who gets rejected for your appearance.”  I sighed and nodded.

“You’re more than your looks, John.  You’re a better guy than you think.”  With that, she rose up and kissed me.

On the lips.

It was nothing more than a quick soft peck, like she’d done to my cheek for some time now.  I was too surprised to kiss her back.

“Go home, John,” she said.  “Get some sleep.  And next time you’re at a party, don’t stop trying to have conversations.”  With that she opened the door.  I mumbled something and headed out.  For a few moments, I didn’t think of anything at all.

Of course, my mind was racing for most of the following week.  Racing in circles.

Which the following Thursday did not sort out.  It was starting to get dark just about dinner time, so Billy and I went out and shot his bow until Tamara called us in.  Afterwards, while Billy did the dishes, I was too scared to ask about the kiss, so we just had a regular conversation.  At least regular for September.  Somehow I’d lost the confidence gained in October.  Tamara’s goodbye was also back to routine—a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I continued to mull it over for most of the following week.  The wise thing to do would be to let it go and just let things happen however they did.  I didn’t want to do the wise thing.

But I didn’t get a chance to be stupid either.  When I showed up the following Thursday, Billy did not come bounding down the hall like previous weeks.

“Billy’s having trouble with his math homework,” Tamara said.  “You’re an engineer.  Can you help him?”  

“Sure,” I replied, and then headed to his room.

Fractions.  What was it about fractions that made them tough?  Billy and I struggled through the chapter.  My struggle was in simplifying things so he could understand.  Billy wasn’t dumb, but Down’s kids were rarely above average intelligence.  I would explain a concept three different times, in slightly different ways, and he still wouldn’t get it or be able to do the next problem.

We were still working on it when Tamara called us for dinner.  Afterwards she told Billy that she’d do the dishes so we could continue to work on his homework, if that was okay with me.  What could I say?

Billy didn’t want to do more homework, of course.  He picked up a MechWarrior sitting on his desk when we got back instead of his pencil.  That gave me an idea.

“Billy!  How about if we do fractions using Warriors?”  He looked at me confused.

“We have one MechWarrior here.  What if we take him apart?  We have pieces, or fractions,” I began.  Billy nodded, so I began dissembling the Warrior in my hand.  I set the legs and arms in a pile with the torso.

“Now, how many pieces are in this pile?” I asked.

“Five,” he answered.

“So if I take one of them, I have one out of five, right?”  He nodded.  “What fraction of a MechWarrior is that?”

“One fifth,” Bill answered.  Of course, it was an easy fraction.  I wrote his answer on the paper.  He looked at the page and nodded.

“Now let’s see if we can do your homework.”  I glanced at the first problem in his actual homework and began putting together a pile of the parts.  Billy quickly got the right answer.

He was a visual and tactile learner, I realized.  We worked through each problem using stacks of MechWarrior pieces and Billy started to quickly catch on.  After one pass through the assignment, I made him create the piles himself.  It took a little longer for him to figure out what the numerals on the page translated to, but he managed it.  He even started to catch on to how to reduce the fractions before creating the piles.  We made a third pass through his assignment, with him just telling me what piles to create based on reading the problems.  Then I’d ask him what the answer was and we’d write it down.  It wasn’t too late when we finished the entire assignment.  Billy grinned happily and we had fun re-assembling all the Warriors before Tamara insisted it was bedtime.  Once again, she walked me to the door.

“John,” she said, “next week is Thanksgiving.  Would you be willing to join us?”

“Ummm.  Sure.  What time?  I normally have Thanksgiving dinner with my folks around noon.”

“We can make it after that.  Say four?”  she suggested.  I nodded affirmatively.

“Thanks,” she replied.  With that, Tamara gave me a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.  I once again headed out into the night.

The following week, Tamara smiled when she opened the door and gave me the traditional hug.

“Thanks for coming, John,” she said, stepping back.

“No problem,” I reassured her.  “Billy in his bedroom?”

“Billy’s out back with his grandmother.  We’ll be eating in a little bit.”  Before I could ask a question, a woman walked up behind Tamara, who slid aside.  I realized it was Summer, from the brothel.  She was dressed casually in a tight t-shirt and jeans but my pulse was already quickening with the memories.

“Hi John!” she called out.

“Hi Summer,” I replied.  “This is a surprise.”  She grinned as the three of us headed to the living room.

“I decided to take a break from Nevada and come visit Lynn,” Summer said when we’d gotten settled.  I was mildly surprised that she used Tamara’s real name.

“You live there?” I asked.

“Oh yeah.  I work close to full time.  At least for now.”  I raised my eyebrows in inquiry but she didn’t continue.

“So when I decided I needed a break, Lynn was kind enough to offer to let me stay with her.”

“How long are you here?”

“A week.  We’re going skiing tomorrow.”  I nodded my head.

“Mom’s going to take Billy for the weekend,” Tamara/Lynn chimed in.

“Sounds fun,” I replied.

“Lynn’s been telling me about everything you’ve been doing for Billy,” Summer interjected.  “She told me about the Halloween party and the homework.  We want you to come skiing tomorrow as a way of saying thanks.”  I felt a little embarrassed.

“Oh, that’s okay.  It wasn’t much.”  I protested.

“It was,” Summer stated.  “And even if it wasn’t, we want you along.  It’ll be more fun.”  She shot Tamara/Lynn a mischievous grin with that last comment.  I started to feel uncomfortable.

“How?” I asked.

“Oh, it just will be.”  Summer grinned like the proverbial canary filled cat, and I sensed that further questions would get me little.

“Okay. . . .” I replied.

“Look John,” Tamara said, “we’ve rented a condo for the night.  We go up tomorrow early, ski all day, grab some dinner, maybe hit the bar, call it a night, and drive down Saturday.  It’s a two bedroom condo, so you can have your own room.

“Oh.”  I thought about it for a minute.  It sounded fine except for. . . 

“Why did you rent a two bedroom condo?” I asked.  Tamara sighed.

“Summer’s friend,” she began.

“Ex-friend.” Summer interjected.

“Summer’s ex-friend,” Tamara repeated, glaring at Summer for the interruption, “cancelled on us after we’d made the reservation.  So if you want to go, the condo’s paid for.  All you have to pay for is your lift ticket.”  And ski rental, and food, I thought.  But no point in raising those details, I knew I was going to accept.

Which was great, because the skiing was good.  I didn’t have much experience, so I stuck mostly to the bunny slopes with Summer.  Tamara did about half her runs with us and half on black runs.  We got in a full day--all we’d done when we’d gotten to the condo was throw our bags on the appropriate bed, with Tamara and Summer sharing one bedroom and me getting the other.  When it started to get too dark to continue, we did a quick clothes change and headed in quest of a good restaurant.  The one we found had a band playing in the bar next to the dining room.  The music was dim but discernable as we ate.  Afterwards, Summer wanted to go next door and listen to it for a while.  Tamara thought that would be fun and so we ambled into the din.

We drew some stares as soon as we hit the door.  Mostly from men in their twenties.  I started to tense, and then realized they were looking at Tamara and Summer first, then at me.  They glared.  I tried to conceal my grin, but I strutted just a little bit more.

We found a table and got some beers.  The band was doing mostly cover tunes.  Rock, with a little blues and country thrown in.  There was a small area cleared up front and about a dozen people were using it as a dance floor.  I settled in and just watched for a couple of songs.  Tamara was mostly watching people at other tables.  Summer was clearly getting antsy.  She turned to me.

“C’mon John, let’s go dance!” Summer exclaimed.  I glared at her.

“I don’t dance,” I informed her.  “I don’t know any steps and I look like a fool.”

“So?  No one here knows you.  Let’s go!”  With that she was on her feet, tugging my hand.  I resisted, pulling back into my seat.  Then Tamara leaned over.

“Go with her John,”  she said.  I resigned myself and let Summer pull me to my feet.

On the dance floor, I was as wooden as I’d predicted.  I could find the beat, but I kept losing it as I tried to plan where to step or move next.  My leg length variation didn’t help either.  Summer meanwhile was shimmying and bopping like the day’s skiing had merely been a warm up.  She smiled warmly at my antics in trying to imitate her.  After two songs, I was sweating profusely.  Summer glowed, cheery like a kid in a candy store.  A break between songs brought her close enough to talk.

“C’mon John!  This is playtime!”  she laughed.  I just looked at her.  The music started up again and she threw her hands up in the air and began shaking her shoulders.  She turned around and gave an exaggerated shake of her ass, then faced me again, laughing at my surprised expression.

Playtime, eh?  I looked around.  No one was watching us, except for a few guys close by who were taking surreptitious looks at Summer.  They weren’t giving me a second glance.  Two guys in western shirts and blue jeans were talking to Tamara, but her polite and cool demeanor indicated she was holding her own.  One of them, a young Tom Selleck look alike, glanced up at us, but then turned his attention back to Tamara.  I looked back at Summer.  She was motioning with her hands for me to follow her moves.  So I took a deep breath.

And danced.

I stopped thinking about where to put my feet or move my arms.  I just tried to keep up with Summer.  She’s step left then right, I’d step left then right.  She’d rock her hips, I’d rock my hips.  She moved closer, I moved closer.  Summer laughed as I got into it.  She took my hand and twirled under it.  I took hers and tried a twirl, which failed miserably in a tangle of arms and missteps.  Laughing, we crashed into a hug.  Summer grinned at me and then got a mischievous look in her eye.

“Are the guys with Lynn looking at us?”  she asked.  I glanced over towards Tamara/Lynn and yes, the two men in the western shirts were watching us, while they continued to talk to her.  I nodded affirmatively.

“Good!”  With that, Summer pulled my head down to mine and kissed me hard.  I felt her tongue pushing against my lips so I parted them and found myself in a ferocious French kiss.  Surprised, I recovered quickly and began kissing her back.  After a moment, Summer disengaged and smiled at me.

“Ready to go back?” she asked.  I nodded and she led us back to the table, holding my hand the entire way.  When we arrived, the two guys were shooting murderous looks at me.  Summer ignored them.

“He’s all yours!” she said to Tamara/Lynn.  Tamara smiled and held out her hand.  I pulled her to her feet and once standing she wrapped her arms around me and pulled my head down.  Our kiss wasn’t the surprise that Summer’s had been, nor was as fierce, but contained enough to clearly be more than chaste.  When we’d finished, Tamara took my hand and led me onto the dance floor, pointedly ignoring the wide mouthed guys standing to the side.

I wasn’t as able to let go as much as I had been with Summer, but Tamara wasn’t as energetic in her dancing either.  We settled into more of a two-step, catching the main beat and ignoring the flourishes above it.  After two songs, she was beginning to look tired.  She took my hand and led me back to where Summer was now sitting alone.

“Ready to go?” Tamara asked Summer.  She grinned and nodded and we abandoned the bar and the noise for more quiet surroundings.

When we got back to the condo, Tamara was fairly sedate.  She made a quick call to check on Billy while Summer and I got some hot chocolate going.  We sipped in silence before she looked pointedly at Summer.

“So how did you get those guys to buzz off?  I tried every polite way I could.”

Summer laughed.  “I stopped being polite!  After they saw us both kiss John, they wanted to know what we were doing with a ‘loser’ like him.” She used her fingers to emphasize the quotation marks.  “I told them that John,” she nodded at me, “was a great fuck and that we were both so addicted to his cock that we’d agreed to share him.”  Tamara started giggling.  “When they didn’t believe me, I started giving the explicit details.”  Summer looked over at me.

“Sorry John,” she teased, “but you might want to make sure you don’t end up in a bathroom or locker room with those guys.  We don’t want them seeing your huge eight inch cock that drives us wild!”  She started laughing as I blushed.  Eight inches, my ass, but if the guys had been willing to believe it and were intimidated by it, that was their problem.

“What else did you tell them?” Tamara saucily asked.

“Oh, not much,” Summer replied.  “I swore that we’d both already fucked him and gave some details to back that up.”  She gave me a quick apologetic look with that.  “I also said we were both going to fuck him again when we got home.”

Tamara snorted.  “You can fuck him.  I’m too tired.”

“Whattya say John?” Summer teased.  I just sat there, mouth agape.

“Use John’s room,” Tamara told us.  “I’m going to bed.”  With that, she pulled herself out of her chair and headed towards the hall.

“Goodnight!” she called back.  We called our goodnights after her.

“Let’s go John,” Summer said, getting up herself.  Not being a complete idiot, I followed her to my room.  As we started clearing my stuff off the bed, I turned to her.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“I want to get laid,” she replied simply.

“You get laid all the time.”

“True, but that’s for them.  This is for me.”  Before I could ask anything more, we had the bed cleared and the blankets pulled off.  Summer wrapped her arms around me and pulled my lips to her.

“I really,” Summer said, in the pauses between kisses, “want your cock in me.”

“Ummm. . .”  The cock in question was straining against my pants.  Summer emphasized her point by sliding a hand over it and caressing me through my clothes.

“I want you,” she murmured, “to make me cum.”

I continued to stand there, as Summer began fumbling with my clothing.  I hurried to catch up with her, and soon we were both stripped.  I stepped back and let my eyes scan from head to toe.  More thin and wiry than I’d remembered, but still all woman.  I didn’t get too much of a chance to look because Summer almost immediately took my glasses off as she began once again covering my mouth and face with kisses.  One of her hands found my cock and began caressing it.  I slid my hands down and cupped her ass, pulling her towards me.  Now a little off balance, she responded by pulling me onto the bed.  I managed to not hit her with a knee or an elbow as we hit the mattress.  Summer shoved me onto my back and began kissing my neck and then my chest.  She trailed kisses further down my abdomen to just below my waist, and then stopped.

“Oops!  Back in a minute!”  With that, Summer scurried out of the room.  I grabbed my glasses again.  This time, I wanted to see my partner.  Then I settled onto the bed, idly stroking my erection to keep it from subsiding.  Summer was back quickly—waving some foil packets.  She grinned when she saw my hands at work.

“Nice,” she said, then looked me in the eye.

“Which position takes you the longest to cum?” she asked.

“Ummm, cowgirl, I guess.”

“Oh good!  I can cum pretty easily that way.”  She broke open one of the packets and began rolling the condom onto me.  When she started to straddle me, she grinned.

“I want you to hold off your orgasm as long as possible,” she ordered.  I nodded in assent.  With that, she slowly sank down, engulfing my cock inside her.

I let out a small gasp, but held mostly still while Summer established a rhythm.  She sighed and closed her eyes, a satisfied smile creeping onto her face and she raised and lowered herself.  One of her hands slipped down to where our bodies met and pressed against her mound and clit.  I reached out and placed my hands on her hips, for guidance more than anything else.  Summer continued to raise and lower herself in a slow steady pace.  Her eyes were still closed, her smile becoming more of a pant.  Her free hand began caressing her breasts and pulling and twisting her nipples.  This was starting to be a little bit much for me.

Math problems.  The project at work.  I tried thinking of other subjects to calm myself down.  Politics.  Even baseball.  Somehow thinking of Grady Little did the trick.  The pressure backed down.

For me, at least.  I looked back at Summer as she began to gasp and shake.  With a loud moan, her first orgasm tore through her.  She shuddered and stopped moving as the waves began to damp down, but then started rubbing her clit furiously and began the cycle again.  She slammed down hard in the middle of that set, grinding her clit against my pubic bone.  Her orgasms continued to roll through her as she collapsed forward onto my chest.  I wrapped my arms around her and began kissing her face and neck.  She was too busy catching her breath to immediately kiss me back.  Eventually she started gently pressing her lips against mine.  Our kisses grew softer and gentler as she rested on my chest, though my cock was still hard inside her.

“That was nice,” she sighed.  “Can you continue to hold off for a while?”

I chuckled.  “I’m surprised I’ve held out this long.”

“Oh good.  Your turn on top.”  With that Summer straightened her legs and motioned to her right with her head.  “Roll.”  I was a little surprised, but complied, after we got my glasses off and out of the way.  We managed to complete the roll, ending with her on her back and me on top of her, my cock never sliding out.  We wiggled a little and Summer raised her knees.  I tentatively began thrusting, finding the right angles.  Summer rolled her hips to meet me.  Once we got a good angle, she pulled me down and kissed me deep.

“Now fuck me hard,” she commanded.  I pulled back and slammed into her.

“Faster,” she ordered.  I picked up the speed and power.  Summer was moaning and gasping, though I was quickly getting tired.  I thrust and thrust.  Summer pushed back against me.  I bent over and started kissing her while we fucked.  She turned her head slightly and I ended up kissing her neck and behind her ear.  Summer let out a long hiss and clamped down around my cock.

That was too much for me.  I gasped as the sensations began shooting through me.  Summer was too deep in her own orgasm to notice mine and she enjoyed several small additional tremors after I’d collapsed on top of her.  Once I’d caught my breath, I withdrew and rolled off of her.  By the time I’d gotten done disposing of the condom, Summer had recovered and had her head propped up on her elbow, a satiated smile on her face.

“Thanks, John.  I needed that!”

I rolled my eyes.  “You can’t get that at work?” I asked.

“Every now and then.  Usually, though, I’m too busy catering to what my client wants to really let go and enjoy myself.  And I did enjoy myself.”  She had that canary eating grin again.

“So why me?” I asked.  “Why not one of the guys in the bar?”  I was thinking about Tom Selleck Junior.

“Because I like you,” she answered, grinning.  “You’re a good guy.”  With that, Summer yawned.

“Nothing like a few good orgasms to get you ready for bed,” she joked.  I just shook my head, still amazed.

“Do you want to cuddle for a little while?” she asked.  I nodded and she slid over, wrapping an arm and a leg around me.  I just sank into that feeling, her skin against mine.  After a while, Summer mumbled something about needing a little space to actually sleep.  I nodded and we shifted each to our own side of the bed.

We slowly drifted off.  I took me a while, as my mind was still spinning.  I wondered how Tamara was sleeping, alone next door.  Eventually the exhaustion of the day caught up to me.  I slept, with nary a dream.

--End Chapter Four--
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