easing himself into my big chair. “I like candles.” When the last one was burning, I turned to go back into the kitchen. “Wait a minute,” he said, his eyes squinting up at me, the ugly grin still spread across his face. “I ain’t heard you offer me nothin yet.”
I didn’t understand what he meant. “I mean you didn’t invite me in. You didn’t ask me to have a drink. You hardly spoke a word to me. I think you got an attitude, Billy, and it’s pissin me off.” He held up the recorder then put it back on the table. “Ya, know,” he continued, Frank sent me over here cause he said there was somethin you got here that you wanted to give me. I’d like you to tell me what it is.”
I turned my back on him. Before I got to the kitchen, I heard him slam his glass down on the table, “Extra days, Billy, fuckin extra days, and maybe Ryan’s again. If you ain’t nice to me, you gonna cause trouble for you-know-who!” he shouted. I returned. He was grinning. Except for a thin fringe of hair hanging over his ears, his head was bald. In the candlelight the sharp features of his face resembled a bird, a seagull. “Well,” he said, “whatcha got for old Silk?”
“Lisa,” I answered.
“Who’s Lisa?”
“My...my wife.”
“You offering me your wife, Billy?” The grin broadened. He waited. When I said nothing, he tapped the recorder.
“Yes,” I said.
“And what should I do with your uppity little woman, Billy?”
“Whatever...whatever you want.”
“I might want a lot of things, know what I mean?” He placed his hand on his crotch. “I might want to take her clothes off.” I didn’t answer him. “Can I do that, Billy?”He leered at me. “You telling me I can undress your wife right here in your living room?”
I nodded. He pointed again at the recorder. “Yes,” I said.
“Yes, what, Billy?”
“Yes, you can...undress her.”
He held his long, grimy fingers up. “I’ll probably want to put my hands on her, you know, touch her bare skin, squeeze her pretty nipples. You standing here saying I can play with your wife’s titties, Billy? You sayin I can play with them pretty white titties?”
He was pushing me close to the breaking point and he knew it. “Yes,” I said.
“I happen to know Frank makes you shave her pussy every day. That right?”
“Yes.”
“You shave it today?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Goddamn, Billy! I’m changing my opinion about you. You was shavin your wife’s pussy early in the morning before you go off to work. And you was doing it cause old Silk likes to see a shaved pussy. That’s damn considerate.” He chuckled. “Did you shave it real close for me, you know, make it nice and smooth?”
“Yes.”
He put his hand on the bulge in his pants. “How about this, Billy. After taking her clothes off, and feeling her bare tits, and looking at that shaved pussy, I’ll most likely want to slide my stiff prick into your little wife. You saying I can do that, Billy...you saying it’s okay for me to shove my cock up into her tight cunt?”
I wanted to crack his skull with the table lamp, but I remembered what Lisa had already gone through and her fear of Ryan’s. “Damn you, yes!” I said. “You can do whatever you want. That was the agreement.”
“But, Billy,” Silk grinned, “I want to hear you say it and so does Frank. Say the old ‘F’ word for us Billy-boy.”
“Yes! Yes! You can fuck her!” I shouted.
Silk took another drink. “Calm yourself, Billy, the afternoon ain’t even started yet.” He drained the glass, watching me carefully. “I also seen how good she goes down on Frank,” he laughed. “And Frank says you gotta watch just like I been doing. But you ain’t to say or do nothin.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Well, all this is very generous of you. You think she’ll do me good? Maybe she’s even got the hots for old Silk?”
“Don’t count on it,” I said.
“Well, if she
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