Dirty Old Men [And Other Stories] (Zane Presents)

  “It’s not. That was just you, pounding me like a fucking maniac. I told you I was too tight for that.”

  “Yeah, whatever. It don’t smell too good out there either,” he told her. “What’s your excuse for that? You took a shower.”

  Sugar heard him and thought about it. She couldn’t deny the stench lingering inside the room. She shook her head and mumbled under her breath, “Fuck you, motherfucker.” Then she hurried to get dressed before he could finish his shower. She planned to leave his ass there and get herself a taxi home. That’s exactly what she did. She already had her money. And that ugly-ass old man didn’t mean a damn thing to her.

  “Fucking pervert,” she yelled toward the bathroom as she walked out and slammed the door.

  Georgie had counted on that. He didn’t want to drive her ass anywhere anyway.

  “Good riddance,” he mumbled inside the shower, hearing the hotel room door slam.

  Later, without returning his key to the front desk, Georgie pulled out of the hotel in his silver Jetta and spotted Sugar climbing into a yellow taxi at the front entrance.

  “Yeah, at least she found her own ride back home,” he told himself. “And now I gotta get a damn checkup for AIDS, or whatever else she may have.”

  Less than a week later, George Tatum was diagnosed with chlamydia, otherwise known as a sticky-drawers, penis drip, acquired after intimate contact with a woman’s yeast infection. It was a minor sexually transmitted disease that could be cleared up after a dose of strong medication and two weeks of abstinence.

  The worst part for Georgie was being asked whom he may have gotten it from.

  “The wrong damn woman,” he told the doctor inside private quarters. That was all he was willing to reveal.

  The doctor told him, “You may want to let her know, so she can get herself checked out.”

  “I already did let her know. I told her what it smelled like in the room. That’s why I knew that something was wrong before it even showed up in my system. But it takes a full two weeks for the AIDS test to come back, hunh?”

  The doctor nodded. “We’ll let you know when we get the results back. In the meantime, you see why it’s important to know everything you can about your partner. Causal sex can be clearly dangerous, and as you’ve found out, condoms are not always foolproof.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell me twice,” Georgie commented. “I’m too old for this shit.”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes, but you still need to try and convince the woman to get checked out as well. She could do a lot more damage to her reproductive track, if her infection is not treated. So you think about that for me. Think about it for her. All right?”

  Georgie nodded and didn’t argue with the doctor. But he didn’t plan on hunting Sugar back down at the strip club. If she was smart, she would get herself checked out on her own. Then again, she was still relatively young, and she had been living on her own for four years. Maybe she hadn’t been taught the importance of staying in touch with a gynecologist for monthly checkups.

  Georgie walked out of the doctor’s private clinic and thought to himself.

  What if the girl don’t know what she’s supposed to do? But would she listen to my ass if I tried to tell her?

  “Shit,” he expressed out loud as he reached his car in the parking lot. “I thought you had to be inspected to even work in a strip club. But I guess not.”

  He climbed into his car and wondered exactly how he would map out a conversation with the young stripper who had burned him. And hopefully, she wasn’t carrying AIDS as well.

  Damn, Georgie mused as he drove in silence. This is the reason why we’re forced to live right. It’s crazy out here. And I’ve been crazy right along with it.

  JAIL BAIT

  Henry Morgan headed home from another hard day’s work at the Richmond Journal newspaper in Virginia, where he slaved as a low-level ad salesman. He was forty-seven years old, slightly overweight, balding, and separated from his estranged wife. He had two children in their mid-twenties, and three young grandchildren he barely made time to see.

  Henry continued to feel self-conscious and distant after his inability to send his two kids to college upon their graduation from high school. His daughter, the oldest, found a few grants and student loans to attend Virginia State for the first few years, but she had not secured enough funds to finish a four-year education in social services. She then joined the work force as an administrative assistant in downtown Richmond before she became pregnant by her unemployed, off-and-on boyfriend of three years.

  Henry’s son, the youngest, had not even tried to attend college. He ended up impregnating two different girls over one long, hot and restless summer.

  The family’s continuation of economic shortcomings soon created a rift between Henry and his wife, with constant battles over money, until they could no longer live in the same house together.

  “You need to do either one of two things,” his wife told him before their split. “One, you need find a better job that pays you more for your time. Or two, you need to learn how to do the one you have better than what you’ve been doing it.”

  Henry chose option three and moved out into a studio apartment, where he was more able to focus and live in peace. Nevertheless, he thought constantly about how differently his life could have panned out, if he had found the courage to search for better employment.

  But I like the newspaper business, he told himself. The newspaper industry was filled with great perks, including invitations to nearly all of Richmond’s local events. He had even gotten his two-toned, Ford Expedition truck at half its value due to his relationships through the paper. And as he drove home that night behind the wheel of his vehicle in silence, he continued to weigh the pros and cons of his loyalty to the local newspaper.

  Halfway home, he received a call on his cell phone. He looked down and read an unrecognizable number. He frowned and answered the call anyway.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, it’s Tasha. Where you at?”

  It was the young woman he had met during a recent car show promotion. Fresh images of her black jeans and tight white T-shirt immediately popped into his mind. Boy, did he admire her hot, young body. Her figure had more dangerous curves than the cars that were at the show. So Henry began to flirt with the girl through several X-rated phone calls made over the past couple of weeks.

  “I’m coming back home from work,” he told her. “Where are you calling from?” It wasn’t the same cell phone number he had called her on before.

  “My phone needs charging, so I’m calling you from my girl’s phone,” she explained. “You gettin’ off work at eight o’clock? I thought you work in the morning.”

  “I did a little overtime tonight to get a few things finished for tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Oh, you did a little overtime, hunh? Are you tired then? What are you doing now?”

  Henry heard a giggle in the background and didn’t like it. He wanted to keep his conversation with her private.

  “Ahh, like I said, I’m going home. But call me back a little later, once you’ve finished charging your phone.”

  “But I wanted to talk to you now. My charger’s back at home.”

  Henry heard more giggles in the background. “Well, it sounds to me like you’ve got yourself some company,” he hinted.

  He hoped she would get the point; he didn’t feel comfortable talking to her around other people.

  “Okay, hold on,” she told him. A few seconds later, she added, “Okay, we can talk privately now.”

  “And what do you want to talk about?” he asked her bluntly. With his thoughts on his family at the moment, he didn’t feel up to having flirtatious conversations with the young woman. Or at least not that evening.

  “Umm, remember all that you was telling me about, you know, eating my pussy and stuff? Umm, when you wanna do that?”

  Henry was shocked by it. And it wasn’t that it was a new subject for them. He had in
deed bragged about what he would be willing to do as an older man that some of the younger men would balk at; her timing was just wrong. Nevertheless, she created an unexpected rise out of him.

  “Ahh, you know, it doesn’t really matter to me.” He wasn’t backing down from it, but he wasn’t exactly stepping up to the plate either. It would ultimately be her decision to take things to the next level. In Henry’s book, flirting and fucking were two separate things. And he had flirted with plenty of women, but he had not taken them to bed, even after the separation from his wife.

  Tasha asked, “What about tonight? Can you come get me?”

  Now that got Henry excited. She had him speechless for a moment.

  “Tonight? Well, ahh—”

  She cut him right off. “Yeah, I’m horny as hell right now. Do you smoke?”

  She continued to speak to him in rapid fire. Henry struggled to keep up with it.

  “Yeah, I still have the bad habit of smoking,” he admitted.

  “You smoke weed?”

  Henry paused. That’s what it is! She’s been out smoking with her friend, and now she’s calling me up high and horny, and ready to do something about it. But he didn’t necessarily view that as a bad thing.

  “I haven’t done that in a while,” he told her. “You know, most office jobs have urine checks from time to time.”

  “Oh, so that means you have to wait until the weekends to smoke.” She chuckled. “So, what’s up? You wanna come get me, or what?”

  Henry continued to stall. Even though she had him intrigued, her sudden invitation was still too unexpected for him to grapple with at the moment.

  “I mean, where you live at?”

  “I told you, I live on the southwest side.”

  “Yeah, but you also told me you’re not at home.”

  “I told you I don’t feel like going home to charge my phone up, that’s all. But I’m right around the corner near my girl’s house.”

  And why would I want to drive around there? Henry questioned.

  “You know I live all the way on the north side.”

  “And,” she challenged him. “Look, if you not serious, then don’t talk that stuff to me no more. All right? Because I thought you were a man of your word.”

  Henry wanted to tell her that she had simply chosen the wrong night, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he said, “I’m almost home right now.”

  “So, what does that mean? You don’t wanna come get me then?”

  He could not deny his hard-on. She had him going. He just didn’t feel up to driving back in the opposite direction of Richmond to get her.

  “Let me get home and think about it.”

  Tasha sucked her teeth and snapped, “All right, man,” before she hung up on him.

  Henry figured that was the end of it.

  “Now she’s mad at me,” he mumbled as he continued to drive home. “So be it.”

  But by the time he made it in and took off his tie, sports jacket, dress slacks and leather shoes, Tasha was calling him back at nearly nine o’clock. “Did you drive back home and think about it yet?”

  Henry chuckled. The girl sure was persistent.

  “As a matter fact, I have.”

  “So…you’re not coming to get me then?” she pressed him.

  Can you believe this? Henry asked himself. This girl wants me to go down on her that damn bad tonight. “Are you that serious about that tonight?”

  “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have called and asked you to get me.”

  Finally, Henry nodded. “You know, I’m gon’ see how serious you are then. Where do you want me to meet you?”

  “Umm, you can meet me on the west side of Broad Street at Popeye’s. You know the one I’m talking about?”

  Henry knew all of Richmond. “Yeah, I know it. But you gotta give me at least thirty minutes to get dressed and make it back down there.”

  “All right, thirty minutes then,” she agreed.

  He hung up the phone with her and shook his head. “Shit. What have I gotten myself into?” He realized this girl wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She wanted it. And she wanted it now!

  Henry arrived at Popeye’s fast-food restaurant on the west end of Broad Street, and he peeked through the glass windows, while remaining inside of his truck.

  “It don’t look like she even here,” he grumbled. Then he looked into his rearview mirror and noticed the young woman climbing out of a dark-gray Subaru in a parking space behind him. She was wearing tight white pants and a black T-shirt.

  Oh my God! Henry told himself as he watched her walk across the small parking lot and toward the passenger side of his truck. I guess there’s no turning back now.

  Tasha climbed into his truck and was all smiles, in short straight hair and chocolate brown skin.

  “What took you so long?” she asked him. Her teeth were a perfect row of white, but her smoked-out eyes were as cloudy as a red storm.

  “It took me a minute to get here, that’s all.” He couldn’t believe an old, balding, overweight guy like himself could luck up with a fabulous young girl like Tasha. He was surprised she had even called him, after he had handed her his cell phone number at the car show. He figured she would have tossed it in the trash with her bag of cheese fries. So when she actually called him and was game to talking fresh over the phone to him, Henry fell right into the fun of talking dirty to her. But now she had climbed into his truck, for real, and she was horny.

  “So, where are you taking me?” she asked him.

  Henry watched the dark-gray Subaru pull out of the lot behind him. He dodged Tasha’s question to ask her about it.

  “That was your ah, girlfriend in that car?” He felt leery about it. He would have rather met up with her somewhere alone.

  “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “And you were out here getting high with her?”

  Henry could read it in her eyes. She was all loose and giddy in the passenger seat.

  “Yeah, we, ah, had a little something. And then we started talking about oral sex and shit, and how guys be wanting girls to go down on them, but then they don’t be wantin’ to go down on a girl. And then I started thinking about you, because you told me that, you know, you wouldn’t have no problem doin’ it. And you said you would like it.”

  Henry remembered the conversation more as him talking shit to a young, hot woman than being truthful. Nevertheless, she did have a look that made him want to back up his talk. And she was definitely acting like she wanted him to do it.

  Henry placed his gears in reverse to back out of his parking spot, and he joked as he drove off. “So, you just want me for my tongue tonight.”

  Tasha laughed. “Yup, I do. But if you give me some, I’ll give you some,” she promised.

  That got Henry rock hard again.

  “That sounds like a deal to me,” he told her.

  “So, where are you taking me to do it?”

  She had no shame in her forwardness, at all. But Henry remained uncertain about everything. He didn’t want to take her to his studio apartment and have her see how cheaply and disorganized he lived. Nor was he willing to spend money on a hotel room.

  He asked, “How badly do you want it?”

  Tasha looked into his eyes and chuckled as they headed east on Broad Street toward Interstate 95.

  “Let me see your hand,” she told him. She reached for his right hand from the steering wheel and stretched it toward her crotch to rub her spot. She was already moist through her white pants.

  “Is that serious enough for you? Or do you need me to put your hand inside my pants?”

  Henry looked back into her cloudy eyes and couldn’t believe it. She had him ready to wet up his own pants. But he still had no idea where to take her.

  “No, I don’t think you need to do that. I think you’re serious enough already.” He retracted his right hand to drive.

  Tasha grinned in silence and looked out the passenger-side window.


  Shit, if she’s that ready, I could pull over somewhere nice and dark, and do it inside the truck. Fortunately, he had cleaned out the back that same week. “You mind if we climb inside the back of this truck?”

  Tasha looked back into the truck to inspect its roominess.

  “Oh shit, we got plenty of room back there. What’s this, an Expedition?”

  Henry answered proudly, “Yeah.” His large truck was one of his few uplifting assets, especially after getting it washed, waxed and vacuumed.

  “Well, it’s wherever you wanna go then. This truck has tinted windows, right?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Tasha looked at him and shrugged, grinning through her high. “It’s up to you.”

  Henry thought of the ideal place; a picnic and park area off of I-95 North. No one went there after dark. It was perfect.

  When they arrived at the deserted park, Henry parked the truck, shut off the ignition, and quickly killed the lights.

  Tasha took a strong look at their surroundings and joked, “I hope Sasquatch don’t come out the bushes and get us out here.” Then she laughed.

  Henry chuckled with her, but he still felt apprehensive. However, Tasha had already undone her seat belt and climbed into the back of the truck.

  “Are you coming back here with me or what?”

  Henry took a final deep breath before he moved. Well, here we go, he told himself. He was too big to climb over the seats to reach the back like Tasha could. Henry had to step out of the truck and reenter from the back door.

  “Let me put these seats down in the back to give us more room.”

  Tasha helped to fold down the back seats, creating plenty of room to lie down.

  “God, you could put a twin-size bed back here.” She remained silly and laughing from her high. Then she began to pull down her white pants and multi-colored panties.

  Henry was still dazed by it all, even while eyeing the small bush of hair that popped into view at the unveiling of Tasha’s young, wet pussy.

  Am I really here doing this? he asked himself once more. He had packed a couple of condoms in his wallet from home, just in case.