her neck and said, “Okay, Lula-honey, I’ll get you the fan.”
“Tomorrow, Harleykins?” she purred.
“Tomorrow. I’ll think of somethin’ I got to run down to Atlanta for.”
Lula didn’t expect something for nothing. The change inher was immediate and inspired. She swung around and began removing Harley’s clothes, licking his chest, fondling him while backing him toward the kitchen.
“What’s your favorite kind of sandwich, Harleykins?”
He stumbled over a pantleg and laughed. “Roast beef and mustard.”
“Mmm... roast beef and mustard. You like mustard, do you, Harley?” She knew he liked mustard. She knew everything about Harley Overmire and used every scrap of knowledge to best advantage.
“Damn right, and Mae, she’s always forgettin’ to put it on.”
“That’s the trouble with Mae,” Lula purred, pushing his boxer shorts to the floor. “Mae doesn’t know what a man likes. But I do.” Harley chuckled, thinking he’d get Lula the biggest damn fan in the city of Atlanta. “And where should a man eat his roast beef and mustard sandwich, Harleykins?” She stroked him till he felt hard and pulsing as a jackhammer.
“At the kitchen table?” Oh, merciful heavens, he thought. This is gonna be good.
“That’s right, honey-lamb. I got cold roast beef in my new Frigidaire, just waitin’ for you, and all the mustard you want, and I’m gonna serve ‘em both to you on the kitchen table, and afterwards you and me’re gonna climb in that beautiful new bathtub and run some of that luscious hot water from my brand-new water heater, and we’re gonna put some Dreft in there and get lost in the bubbles, and everytime you open your lunch pail up at the mill and see a roast beef sandwich without mustard, you’re gonna remember who it is that treats you right—aren’t you, Harleykins?”
They spent forty minutes on the kitchen table, and the things Lula did with that mustard would have sold millions of bottles, had the manufacturer had the ingenuity to suggest such uses.
Later, in Lula’s shiny new porcelain tub, she ran her bare toes up Harley’s hairy chest. His eyes were closed and his beefy arms rested on the wide edge.
“Harley?”
“Hm?”
“A stranger came into the cafe today.”
“Hm.” He sounded disinterested.
Two minutes passed in silence while Lula patiently rested with her eyes closed. She was bright enough to know that if she asked, she’d arouse his suspicion. But if Harley thought he alone could scratch her itch, he was sadly mistaken.
“Don’t get many strangers through here,” she murmured in due time, as if half asleep.
Harley lifted his head. “Tall guy? Wiry? Wearin’ a battered cowboy hat?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” she replied dreamily, following with a throaty chuckle. “Hey, Harley, how come you always know everything before I can tell you?”
He chortled and laid his head back. “You got to get up pretty early in the mornin’ to put one over on old Harley.”
“He just read the paper and moved on.”
“Prob’ly lookin’ at the want ads. I fired him from the mill today.”
“What’d he do wrong?”
“Done five years in Huntsville State Pen for killin’ a whore in some whorehouse down there.”
Lula’s foot hit the water with a splash as she sat bolt upright. “My God, Harley, he didn’t!” Her blood ran fast at the mere idea of being in the same room with a man like that. “Lord, we women won’t be safe on the streets.”
“That’s what I told him. Parker, I said, we don’t want your kind around here. Pick up your pay and git.”
So his name was Parker.
“Good for you, Harley.” She lay back and stroked his genitals with her heel. Beneath the bubbly water they were sleek. She began growing aroused again, touching Harley, but picturing the tall, taciturn cowboy who’d said so little and had hidden beneath the brim of his hat. Still waters, she thought, and felt her heart begin to race. Going to bed with a
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