On his upper left shoulder was a tattoo of a scorpion and the number 283. Elise put her hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter.
“Were you a member of the Scorpions?” Olivia was trying to hold in her laughter, but it was in her voice.
Turning back, Ray shook his head at them—but he was smiling. “Two snobby little girls. Can I sell you two some diamond-encrusted watches?”
“Ever the salesman,” Olivia said, and she and Elise laughed some more. When Ray held out his hands to them, they took them.
“Can you ride a motorcycle?” Elise asked as she followed him into the living room.
“Like I was born on it. And no, I’ve never participated in a gang war. Sounds like you two have all the same questions Kathy did.”
“Your wife,” Elise said as she and Olivia plopped down on the couch.
Ray went into the kitchen and got a big bag of tortilla chips and a container of freshly made guacamole dip and set them on the coffee table. He was still shirtless and didn’t seem inclined to re-dress. He sat in the big chair to the side. “I suggest that we each tell our favorite sex fantasy.”
Olivia laughed, but Elise nearly choked on a chip.
“Come on now, you two have been teasing me ever since you came back, and this is after a day of running around like a couple of Lady Godivas. Maybe I should break into the caretaker’s house. I’d like to see his trophies.” He narrowed his eyes at Elise. “And yes, Miss Got-Rocks, I have broken into more than one house. And before you start trying to wheedle the rest of my story out of me, I’ll tell you that after my best buddy was killed in one of our burglaries, I quit. Cold turkey. I put myself through school. Clawed my way to the top. Married the boss’s daughter—who I now want to divorce. You have any more questions?”
Elise looked at Olivia. “Not me. You?”
“None. I’ve had a recurring dream.” She looked at Ray. “I’m back to the sex fantasy idea. That is, if you can imagine an old woman like me involved in sex.”
“Olivia,” Ray said slowly, “I can imagine you doing acrobatics naked.”
She gave a little smile. “I am a bit limber.”
“Should I leave the room for you two?” Elise asked, half-serious.
“Naw,” Ray said. “Jeanne told me Livie’s husband had single-handedly brought down governments. I don’t think I’ll risk it.”
“I can tell you that I like flirting better than young men asking me if I need help carrying a bag of groceries.” Olivia took a breath. “Okay, back to fantasies. It’s a very simple dream, but since it’s appeared off and on for about four years now, I sometimes think it’s a premonition. I’m in bed—”
“Great start,” Ray said.
“Be quiet, Mr. Scorpion.” Elise leaned back on a pillow and looked at Olivia. “What did you do in bed?”
“I woke up to several men kissing me.”
“That’s all?” Ray asked.
“They have different colors of skin. Black, brown, red... I’m not sure. Maybe blue. I had some very pleasant thoughts about those blue men from that movie. Anyway, the actual color isn’t important, but there is a contrast.” Leaning back, she said nothing else.
Ray spoke first. “What happens after the kissing?”
“I don’t know. There was never a dream sequel, but I would expect that there is a lot more kissing.” She looked at Elise. “What about you?”
“I hope it’s better than the first one,” Ray muttered.
Elise took so much time in replying that Ray went to the kitchen to get rum, Cokes, and ice, and refilled glasses. Within seconds, the women were again smiling.
“After I was married,” Elise said, “I spent a lot of time thinking about my wedding day. I had so many thoughts about it, that I even, uh... I...”
“Come on,” Ray said, “out with it.”
“I rehearsed my fantasy.”
“So now you must tell us,” Olivia said.
“My wedding dress cost $48,781.82.” She waited until they’d lowered their eyebrows. “It was a ghastly thing. My mother seemed to think I was so bland that if I didn’t have a dress big enough to use for a tent, no one would actually see me. It was heavy and awkward. I could barely walk in the thing. But what I could do was spread my legs under it and no one could see me.”
Olivia and Ray had equally wide eyes.
“No, no, not like that,” Elise said. “My mother never knew it but I wore a pair of white yoga pants underneath that hideous dress. It was just defiance on my part and nothing came of it, but as I stood at the altar, those pants made me feel that a little of myself was there. But anyway, after I was married, I was so...disappointed, I guess, that I became obsessed with the idea of ‘What if it hadn’t happened?’ I thought of awful things, like car wrecks, and tornadoes that took Kent away, and even once I thought ‘What if I had said no?’ That was the scariest idea I could imagine.”
She took a swallow of her drink. “Somewhere in there I began to fantasize about what could have happened. I imagined that just before I was to say ‘I do’ to Kent, a man would ride a black horse down the aisle of the church. Of course, everyone would be stunned into silence—me included. When he got to the altar, he’d put his hand down to me. He wouldn’t say anything, but I’d know what he meant. I’d grab his arm and vault onto the horse behind him and we’d gallop out of the church.”
“Then what?” Ray asked.
“I’d like to think that we’d go somewhere and have sex like I see in the movies. Not what Kent and I did for eleven minutes every other week, but real sex, the kind that raises a sweat.”
“Hear! Hear!” Olivia said.
Ray smiled. “How did you rehearse that part?”
“I didn’t dare practice the sex, if that’s what you mean, but I did say that I wanted to take riding lessons. Kent’s mother had ridden as a girl so that meant it was okay for me to do it. Whatever Mummy did was the height of perfection and therefore allowable for me to do.”
As she took a deep drink of her rum and Coke, Ray and Olivia were silent as they waited for more of her story. It felt as though she was leaving something out.
“So I started riding lessons and it was weeks before I got up the courage to tell my trainer that I wanted to learn how to leap up behind a man. He agreed instantly. I think he was bored teaching rich girls how to stroll through a park on a horse. For weeks we rehearsed.
“He’d ride up to me, then lean down. I’d grab his arm as high up as I could, put my foot in the stirrup, and leap. It was a really hard thing to do but I managed it. Maybe it was silly, but it made me feel, well...prepared.”
“For when a naked woman bent down from atop a tree branch and held out her arm to you?” Ray asked. When the women looked at him in surprise, he said, “I listen. I have to so I can sell things to people.”
At the memory of her day’s adventure, the sad look left Elise’s pretty face and she smiled. “Exactly! If I hadn’t rehearsed I couldn’t have swung up, and that old man might have hit us with a shotgun.”
“You presaved our lives,” Olivia said and the two women started laughing again.
Ray’s groan halted them. “I hope you women are aware that neither of your little daydreams has to do with sex. A sex fantasy involves tongues on flesh and being tied to a bed and orifices and—” He broke off because they were looking at him with great interest. “I think you two want romantic fantasies.”
Olivia and Elise looked at each other, then back at Ray. “No, we’ll take the sex,” Olivia said.
“I agree,” Elise said. “Tell us about the sex. Do bad boys...you know...do things in different ways?”
“No,” Ray said. “We don’t.” He was grinning. “Bad boy. No one’s thought of me like that in a long time. I think all the suits I have to wear rub the edge off a man.”
“True. You look like a stockbroker now.” Elise was smiling at the naked upper half of his body.
“If I didn’t think I’d break a little thing like you in half, I’d demonstrate what I know. I could—”