The Ugly One
by be287m

Chapter Two

I didn’t know what to do with my hands.  After I caught myself tugging on my shirt sleeves yet again, I shoved them into my pockets.  Then I started rattling my change, which led to stares from a woman entering the library.  I backed up towards the side of the entryway, trying to make myself a little more inconspicuous.  I realized I was tugging on my sleeves again.  Maybe I should have brought a book.  Standing in front of the Denver Public Library holding a book wouldn’t seem too strange.  Which of course I was.

Tamara had indeed given me her phone number the next morning, after another round of sex.  After two weeks of trying to guess her motives, I’d finally called.  She’d asked me to meet her here on a Saturday morning.  She said she’d explain more once we’d met.  I’d arrived early and was now growing more nervous with each passing moment.

Finally I saw her coming up the sidewalk, an older woman and a boy with her.  Tamara was surprisingly plain.  No makeup, baggy clothes, her hair pulled back and loosely bound.  The juxtaposition with my memories from the brothel was striking.  The older woman looked grandmotherly, with grey coiffed hair over pretty functional clothes.  The boy looked about ten and was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans but looked a little . . . .

Oh.  Down’s Syndrome.  High functioning, apparently from the way he moved.

Tamara saw me and smiled and waved.  I waved back and they were soon close enough to talk.  The grandmother hung back a couple of steps.

“Hi John!” Tamara exclaimed.  “John, meet my son, Billy.  Billy, this is my friend John.”

He hung back a little shy, but his mother urged him forward.  I extended a hand and he gave me a handshake.  In doing so, he looked me up and down and his eyes widened.

“You’re funny looking!” the boy stated.

“Billy!” Tamara exclaimed.  The boy looked embarrassed and started to cling to his mother.  I bent down to bring my eyes level with his.

“Actually, Billy, I’m not funny looking.  I’m the Ugly One.”  Billy heard the capital letters and stopped scrunching up his face and began staring at me in curiosity.

“Yep, the Ugly One.  That’s what the kids called me in school.”

“They didn’t call you Sped or Dummy?” he asked.

“Oh they called me lots of things.  But somehow the Ugly One was what they called me the most.”  

I extended my hand again.  “Good to meet you, Billy.”  Billy tentatively reached out and took it.  He shook hands hard this time and then let go and looked up at Tamara.

“Now you go on to story hour with Grandma,” she told him.  Billy nodded and allowed the older woman to scoop him up and lead him into the library.  When they’d disappeared through the doors, Tamara looked at me.

“That was great,” she said.  “You were really good with him.”

“Is Billy who you wanted me to meet?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.  “Let’s grab some coffee and I’ll tell you about it.”

So we walked across Civic Center Park to the south end of the 16th Street Mall and located a coffee shop within a few blocks.  After we’d ordered and settled into our chairs, Tamara paused to collect her thoughts.

“I had Billy when I was young,” she began.  “His dad took off as soon as he saw he had Down’s.  I struggled on and finished college with some help from my parents.  Then my dad died and mom couldn’t help me out financially anymore.  We did okay until I decided I wanted to go back to school and become a doctor.  I didn’t know how to afford med school though.”  I raised an eyebrow when she paused, and after a sip of coffee she continued.

“I’d been working in a pharmacy as a cashier and gotten to be friends with this one girl just before she quit.  A month later she stopped back by, flashing a bunch of cash.  We went out that night and after a few drinks she told me how she’d earned it.  She’d started working for an escort agency.”

“Now I grew up in a pretty liberal household.  My parents taught me there was nothing wrong with sex and didn’t mind when I started sleeping with boys as a teenager.  In fact, they used to let me take them to my room as long as they didn’t spend the night.  They didn’t say anything when I went through a lot of boys really quickly, though I think my dad was disappointed in me.  The fact was, I liked sex and I liked boys, and I didn’t see anything wrong with having a lot of either.”

“So after my friend spent the evening talking about the fun she was having and the cash she was making, I started thinking.  I asked her a lot of questions later and the only thing I could see wrong with what she was doing was that she could be arrested or beaten up because she was working illegally.  That’s when I started looking into Nevada.”  I nodded at that.

“Mom wasn’t too thrilled, but she said she’d support me, which included looking after Billy while I was off working.  That meant I could concentrate on school while I was back here instead of having to work full time as well.”

“What about traditional financial aid like loans?” I asked.  Her face turned sour.

“We tried, but even accounting for Billy’s disability, it wasn’t going to be enough.  Unless I was willing to go into debt for the rest of my life.”

“Besides,” she continued, “I still like sex and working let me be with men without the hassles of a relationship.”  I didn’t quite understand that but the expression on her face when she said “hassles” discouraged me from asking more.

“So where do I come in?” I asked.  

Tamara sighed.  “They’re mainstreaming Billy at school.  He got picked on before but I’m scared it’s going to be much worse.  Also, he’s not talking to me or his grandma as much as he used to.  Last spring he would run home from school and barricade himself in his room and not tell me why.  Sometimes I could hear him crying.  Once when I asked him what was wrong, he said I wouldn’t understand because I was a girl.”

Tamara looked pained.  She struggled to catch her breath again at the memory.

“I spent a lot of the summer wishing his dad hadn’t run off, or that he had an uncle or something,” she continued.  “I thought that maybe if there was a guy he could talk to, he’d open up a little more and share what was happening at school.  Then when you said you were from Denver and that you’d been picked on in junior high too . . .” she let it trail off, anxiousness covering her face as she looked at me.

“You want me to be his friend,” I stated.

“Yes,” she acknowledged.  “She reached out and took my hand.  “I’ll pay you back, of course.  Just not in money.”

“By having sex with me?”

“If that’s what you want.”

My dick stirred at the thought.  The memories of her body straddling mine and her breasts under my mouth sent my blood racing.  God this was tempting.  Unfortunately, my gut was queasy with the thought.  I sat, thoughts churning.  Tamara waited patiently.

“As much as I would love to have sex with you regularly, I can’t do it,” I said.  “Sex with you was good a lot because you didn’t have to do what you did.  I don’t want you having sex with me because you have to.  I don’t want to destroy those memories.”

Tamara’s face fell.  She pulled her hand back from mine and took another sip of coffee.  I had an idea.

“How about if instead you fix me dinner on a regular basis?” I suggested.  Her face brightened.  “Remember how I need some practice being around women?  You could be my pseudo-date, helping me learn how to act before I go on a real date.  It would also give me a reason to see Billy on a regular basis.”  Tamara was now nodding her head at the idea.

“How about Thursday evenings?” she suggested.  I nodded affirmatively and Tamara reached over and grabbed my hand again, squeezing it hard.

“Thank you John!”  The delight in her eyes made me squirm a little, but I smiled back.  Then Tamara asked me about my food preferences and any allergies.  From food the conversation flowed to drinks and restaurants, of which I knew very little, but it felt relaxed and even fun.   Finally, Tamara checked her watch.

“We need to get going if we’re going to be back by the end of story time,” she said.  I drained the last of my coffee and we headed toward the door.  All too soon, we were back at the library.  We paused, apparently a few minutes early.

“Uh, John,” Tamara began.  “There’s one other thing.  Tamara’s my working name.  My real name is Lynn.”  That struck me as odd, before I remembered that a “stage name” was common practice in Nevada.  I realized I felt tense with her revelation.

“Can I still call you Tamara?  I think I’d feel better.”

“Sure, but not in front of Billy.  I don’t want to confuse him,” she said.  I nodded in response.  

Just then Grandma and Billy emerged from the library.  Tamara/Lynn moved forward to give her boy a hug, which he took with all the mixed emotions of a pre-teen.  I stood by while she asked about story time, which got me wondering if he was too old for that.  He seemed to have enjoyed it though—a little child still mixed in with that growing body.  It hit me how much junior high was going to truly be hell for him when he got there, with no place to really fit in.  I closed my eyes to dismiss the images.

When I opened them, Tamara was standing in front of me holding Billy’s hand, Grandma once again discreetly distant.  

“Thanks John,” she said, pressing a piece of paper into my hand.  “My address,” she said when I looked down at it.

Then Tamara leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.  I was too surprised to react before she’d pulled away.

“See you Thursday, around six,” she said as they began to walk away.  I stood, watching them go, still surprised, lightly touching my fingers to my cheek.

I was early to her place.  I sat in the car, drumming the steering wheel with my fingers, watching the clock.  I figured it would take two minutes to get up to her door.  At 5:58 I slid out of my seat and was on my way.

After ringing her bell, I caught myself fiddling with my sleeve again.  I should have brought something, I realized.  Wine or flowers or something that I could hold.  Fortunately I stopped fidgeting just before Tamara opened the door.

“John!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around me and giving me a hug.  She smelled of flowers, I noted.

“C’mon in!” she said, leading the way.  I tried not to peek at her ass as I trailed after.  I’d been second guessing my decision to not take sex as payment for the past week.  Oh I wanted it badly; even when I knew I’d hate myself for it later.

“I’m not quite done cooking,” Tamara said, as we entered the dining room.  “Billy’s in the back bedroom, watching a video.  Perhaps you could join him?”

“Sure,” I replied, nodding.  I headed toward the sound of the music.

Billy was watching Disney of course.  He looked up as a girl in a yellow dress entered a mansion on the screen.

“Hi Billy, remember me?”

“Yeah, you’re The Ugly One!”  I suppressed the stab of pain.

“That’s right Billy,” I replied, “but my name is John.  Can you call me John?”

“Okay,” he said, before turning back to his video.  I sat down beside him.

“Do you like this movie?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the screen.  “I’ve seen it before.  Lots of times.”

“Must be a favorite.”

“Yeah, but it’s a little kid’s movie.”

“Oh?”

“Mom won’t let me watch big kid movies.”

“Oh?  Are there any you want to see?”

“The kids at school are all talking about how cool the final Matrix movie is gonna be.”  Figures.  I wondered how many of them would see it the weekend it opened, despite its R rating.

“They say the fight scenes are gonna be cool.”

“You like fight scenes?” I asked.

“Yeah.  Sometimes I wish I could fight like that.”  I sat in silence, groping for topics.  I didn’t know anything about martial arts and very little about popular movies.  Then I remembered my friend Jerimy had taken Kendo in college.

“Do you like sword fights?” I asked.

“Oh yeah!  They’re really cool!  I gotta sword!  See!”  With that, Billy bounded towards the closet where he grabbed a plastic sword which he began wildly swinging about.  I nodded approval as he showed me some of his moves.  Then I borrowed his sword and swung it as Billy told me what I was doing wrong.  We passed the sword back and forth a handful of times before we realized Tamara was standing in the door, watching.

“Time for dinner, boys,” she said.  We put down the sword and followed her into the dining room.

Dinner was quite good.  As we ate, Tamara tried to get Billy to talk about his day at school.  Billy, however, kept changing the subject.  He wanted to talk about swords and knights and sword fighting and musketeers and swords and samurai and sword fighting and anything but school.  I became amused at Tamara’s exasperation at her son’s antics but could tell she didn’t want to put her foot down.  I suppose I contributed to that once I told Billy that a friend of mine had done some Kendo and the conversation became permanently derailed from school.  Eventually we hit a pause after the food had been all consumed and Tamara reminded Billy of his chore of doing the dishes.  Together we cleared the table and then Tamara and I sat on the couch while Billy clanged pots into the sink in the other room.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?  He wouldn’t talk about his day.”

“But he did talk,” she replied.

“Yeah,” I said.  “I like the kid.”

“He likes you too.”

We sat for a moment before I started to feel uncomfortable with the silence.

“So,” I began, “now what?”  Tamara shrugged.

“You said you wanted to get comfortable around women, by spending time with me.  So we spend some time.”

I realized I was drumming my fingers on my thigh.  I clenched my fist to stop.  Then I realized I was hunched over.  I sat up straight.  Tamara never took her eyes away from me.  The silence pounded on me.  I stared down at my fingers.

“Relax, John,” Tamara said, causing me to look up.  “We’re not going to do anything but sit here and talk.”

“I don’t know what to talk about,” I admitted.

“What would you talk about if this were a date?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  On the few dates I’ve had, we didn’t talk much.  I usually sat there wondering why she was out with me and what I should do.”

“Well, you know why I’m here with you and that what you should do is talk.  Don’t worry about making a pass at me—just get comfortable talking.”

“About what?” I asked.

“Whatever you want to talk about.”  When she saw the discomfort on my face, she continued.  “Ask a question about something you’re genuinely interested in.”

I thought for a moment.  The first things that jumped in my head were questions I already knew the answer to.  Why me?  Why wasn’t she repulsed by me?  Would she be willing to sleep with me?  I already knew them all.  I sorted past them for a different question.

“What’s it like?” I finally asked.  “Working in a brothel?”

Tamara shrugged.  “It’s a job.  It pays well.  Sometimes you get good clients, sometimes bad.  Some coworkers are good to work with, some are not.  Some days I hate being there and sometimes I have a lot of fun.  It’s not much different than other jobs.”

“Except you screw your clients.”

“So do lawyers,” she shot back.  I grimaced in response.

“Sex is not the most intimate thing you can do,” she continued.  “Sometimes it’s a kiss on the lips or the pillow talk afterwards.”  She’d done neither with me, I realized.

“Besides, most of my clients are genuinely nice guys.  Like you.  I like being with them.”

“Even the old or fat ones?”  I asked, avoiding adding the obvious word.

“Even the physically unattractive ones,” she said, filling it in herself.  “My clients are people, not bodies.”

“People, eh?”

“People.  Let me tell you about a few of them.”

Which she proceeded to do.  I could tell she was being circumspect and self-censoring as she spoke—assiduously protecting their identities or any detail that could be used to identify them.  She was also surprisingly discreet about the acts they had done together, but I learned of the farmhand saving up a year’s spare pay for one expensive night of celebration, the lonely widower who just wanted to be held, the guy who’s wife sent him to the brothel because of a fantasy the wife didn’t want to help him fulfill, and several others.  She spoke of each of them with tenderness or a dash of mischief in her eyes (the coworkers not always so).  Eventually one of her stories reminded me of one of my cousins—both had spent a lot of money on jewelry that turned out to be fake.  That led me to telling a few stories of my own, with Tamara constantly drawing me out with questions and more mini-stories of hers.  She only broke off when Billy appeared in the door.

“All done mom!”

“Great, Billy!  Say, have you shown John your MechWarriors?”

“You wanna see my MechWarriors?” Billy asked me.

“Sure!”  With that, he motioned for me to follow him back to his bedroom.  Opening the closet door, Billy carefully pulled out K’nex MechWarriors he’d constructed.  He had a story for each one.  He described when they’d bought it or who gave it to him, how he put it together, and all of its abilities.  He started to tell me about the battles they fought and soon we were recreating them on the floor, climbing around the bed and shooting at each other’s warriors.  We played for some time, following ever changing rules of battle that Billy would explain as we went along.  Eventually, I noticed Tamara watching from the door.  She didn’t say much—just grinned as she watched a thirty year old man crawling around on the floor with her young son.

“Yes?” I finally asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

“You sure?”

“Just thinking of something one of my teachers once said.”

“Which was?”

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

I rolled my eyes but before I could retort, Billy’s warriors were swarming my fort behind the nightstand and I was forced to return to the flow of the game.  Instead her words stuck with me for some time.

September went much as the first night.  Every Thursday I would arrive at Tamara’s for dinner.  I’d have up to a half hour or so to hang out with Billy before the food was ready.  We’d watch videos or play games—often ones we were inventing on the spot.  After dinner, Tamara and I would talk while Billy did the dishes.  I got more and more relaxed as we did so.  Then sometimes Billy and I would play another game before Tamara shooed him to bed and walked me to the door.  She’d give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  I would walk into the night, floating on the memory of her touch.

I didn’t know about a second childhood, but I was happy.

--End Chapter Two-- 
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