All of Her Men (18 page)

Across the hall from the swimming pool and off to the left was a door that seemingly led into a dark, empty room. This was the relaxation room and I loved it there. You could grab a towel
, and once inside, you would lie on the heated floors and drift off to a warm far away place for a while. The room, plain as it was, provided the perfect environment so as to permit legitimate tranquility. Not too many people, from what I gathered, took full advantage of this room. Perhaps it was too plain and empty and seemingly, had nothing to offer. I begged to differ.

Yet still, nothing beat the Jacuzzi. There were two standing showers right next to the Jacuzzi and we each stepped in and ran
cool water over our bodies without wetting our heads. I had worn a black string bikini while Olivia had chosen to wear a pink and white polka dotted one. Neither of us bothered to dry off before slowly descending down the small steps into the hot bubbling Jacuzzi.

Finally, I thought as
I absorbed the piping hot water and felt the ferocity in which it boiled. The water might even have been a few degrees too hot but I didn’t care. The pain invigorated me. I lowered myself, ignoring Olivia, and brought my head down so that my neck rested on the edge of the tub. I shuffled over a few inches to the left so as to align the jets to my back. My eyes fluttered down to a gentle close and I blissfully delved into another realm where the only thing that mattered was me and my own existence.

“Don’t pass out Jo,” she said loudly.

I exhaled deeply to convey my irritation.

I didn’t often get the itch to kill women but Olivia was
hastily forcing me to reconsider my preference for killing only men. I loved her with all my heart but I more than half-heartedly entertained the idea of gutting her and leaving her body hanging from a shower head.

“I mean it! Don’t fucking go to sleep,” she said.

“Come on Liv! I’m tired,” I pleaded with exasperation. “I worked most of the night making sure I could come here today. Let me chill,” I demanded.

“You can’t
chill
in a Jacuzzi smart ass.”

“You’re
hilarious,” I said.

“I haven’t seen you in forever,
I need girl talk. I don’t even know what the fuck is going on in your life anymore…” A skinny waiter interrupted us and handed us our drinks then scurried back towards the bar. The tea was a bit too hot to sip while sitting in the scorching tub but I just needed a taste. I took a sip as Olivia downed half her beer.

“Sooo, tell me. Who are you fucking now?
I’m dying to know” she said nonchalantly.

“Umm, my boyfriend
?” I said.

“
Fuckin’ liar” she said. “I always ask you who you’re fucking and you always say your boyfriend but we both know you’re lying. You’re a dirty little slut just like me, you just won’t admit it.”

“Firstly, I’m not a dirty little slut just like you,” I said pointing my index finger at her. “
I can’t help that you’ve made it you’re life’s mission to never allow me to catch up,” I laughed. “And secondly, I swear I’m only having sex with Eric.”

Olivia stared at me repulsed.

“You, Jo,” she now pointed her finger angrily at me. “may not be a dirty little slut like me but you are a nasty little liar. Say what you want, you’re a sick and twisted little piece of shit waiting to expose yourself.”

“I guess you’ll just have to wait till I declare it myself, then,” I shot back.

The heat was getting to be too much. I stood up and slowly stepped out of the tub. I grabbed a towel and placed it on the hook next to the shower. I took a quick 20 second shower cooler and took my seat at the nook where Olivia had already sat down. She perused the menu as I took my seat across from her at our tiny table and smeared a small amount of butter on the whole wheat bread that had been placed at our table. In between small bites of bread and tiny sips of piping hot tea I rubbed a second towel against my wet hair.

Olivia began violently
punching the letters of a message into her phone. Someone or something had ticked her off.

“Dish,” I said
sipping my tea.

“Th
is fucking Mexican, man,” she said. “I told him I needed a grand to fix my car and he’s not budging.”

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“Nothing,” said Olivia shrugging her shoulders carelessly. “I just want some moolah. He usually coughs up money no problem. He says he wants me to suck his dick a little more. I told him that I’m not a fucking whore and if he’s only giving me money every time we have sex then it’s fucking over!”

“You mean you don’t have sex with him for money?” I asked.
I found the whole situation extremely comical.

“Hell no, bitch,” she retorted. “I’ve only had sex with this mother fucker twice and he’s given me
like six grand in the past two months.”

I
choked on my tea. “Geez what the fuck Liv? Can I get a glimpse of your pussy and see what I’m lacking?” I joked. “Do you have specs of gold oozing out of your snatch or somethin’?” We both laughed loudly and the massage lady who was knitting in her chair shushed us. Apparently our laughter distracted her from her muted Chinese program on the flat screen.

Olivia shot her the finger when she turned back around.

“Anyways, it doesn’t matter,” she continued. “I’ve got so many other SD’s I don’t give a shit if he gives it to me or not. Check this out,” she said with non- chalance. “I got this Jew from New York right. His house is huge, I mean huge. He’s got like six kids and he gives me two grand a month just to keep me around.”

“To keep you around? What?” I asked. “I don’t get it. What am I missing here?”

“Yeah, he just likes texting me all day and shit. ‘I miss you baby. Can’t wait till I see you cutie.’ You know, stupid shit like that”

“And that’s worth two grand a month?” I shot both hands up in the air in disbelief. “You are unbelievable Liv.
Seriously, teach me. Teach me how to not sell my body and make bank,” I pleaded jokingly.

“Yeah, let’s go smoke real quick and we’ll come back in,” Olivia suggested changing gears.

Smoking wasn’t permitted indoors like every other place in the state of New Jersey but we didn’t have to take it outside either. We had to go back to the locker room for cigarettes but we made our way back near the Jacuzzi to another door that really led nowhere. It was the designated smoking room for those who wished to smoke but didn’t feel like putting all their clothes back on to go outside.

I sparked a lighter to my cigarette and inhaled slowly.
I closed my eyes briefly to simply enjoy the slight rush of nicotine as it made its way through my body. Olivia stood to my left and to my surprise lit a ridiculously fat blunt right there in the room.

“Jesus Liv, come on,” I said
.

“What?” she asked innocently. “You want a hit?”

“Do you have to spark it right here? We could have gone outside. And yes I want a hit,” I smiled. The only thing better than a couple of hours at the spa were a couple of hours spent at the spa while stoned. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to smoke in here though. But Olivia had wielded the mystical wand in my face and you just couldn’t let it go to waste.

Not that I was a model citizen. After all, I was a cold blooded killer. I’d lain in more death beds than I could count. I could count of course. But I never really
thought about the number. Not really. It didn’t matter how many times I killed, no matter how many souls I eviscerated from their physical bodies, it didn’t matter. It was as unimportant as their names or faces. After a while, all the Tims, Johns or Mikes twirled into one amorphous figure representing the gestalt version of my life’s work. I’ve built a career out of killing and I’ve used my men as mere stepping stones on my rise to the alter of greatness. It didn’t matter if that greatness was known only to me and none other. It didn’t matter how many times I killed, no matter how many souls I eviscerated from their physical bodies, it didn’t matter.

Yet I
still preferred to play by the rules in other aspects of my life. I suppose that was why I enjoyed Olivia’s company as much as I did. She had no rules. Of course, she didn’t really know me. I could never reveal the most sinister edges of my being. And I never would. But Olivia was different. You knew what you were getting with her from the start. She was going to say shit you weren’t going to like and she was going to do shit that was really going to piss you off. But it was all real. It wasn’t for show. There was sincerity in her personality that I envied.

I stole a glance at her as she continued to type frivolously into her phone. I could see that she
was messaging multiple people.

“Liv we came her to relax. Put the phone away,” I said taking another pull. Liv’s blunts always pulled better than anything I could
ever roll.

“What do you want me to do Jo? I got like six or seven guys thinking they’re my boyfriend. They text all day.
It’s like a full time job,” she said.

“Fuck that. That’s too much damn work for shitty sex and some money.” That was the di
viding line between Olivia’s school of thought and my own. She would do anything for money and very little for good sex. I, on the other hand, would do next to nothing for money but worked very hard for the perfect lay.

“Yeah
, Jo. That’s why you have tons of sex and I have tons of money. A girls gotta pick her poison.”

“
Hmm,” I agreed.

“Anyways, let’s get out of here before
the Chinese lady comes at us.”

I followed
behind as Olivia led the way back to our nook. We set down our things and ordered another round of tea and beer.

“I wanna go into the Turkish Sauna,” I said over to Olivia.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you in there I gotta pee real quick,” she said already walking towards the rest room.

I grabbed a couple of extra towels to sit on as
I opened the cloudy door and stepped into the foggy abyss. It was like walking into a soggy wet oven. The sweat ballooned out of my every pore within seconds of taking in the steamy air. I laid down a towel and took a seat on the bottom ledge of bath steps. Olivia wouldn’t be able to find me if I went too far into the gray cloud so I stayed fairly close to the door.

I leaned my back against the wall and threw a towel over my face. The towel made it easier for me to breathe. The air was so
hot and thick. Most people couldn’t stand ten minutes in the Turkish sauna. I never managed to stay in here longer than that myself.

The only sound to listen to was the clatter of my flip flops against the slippery tile. The loud echo made me wonder
if I was alone. You could never tell in this room. The other sauna’s would be just as hot, but dry. The intense moisture levels here produced a heavy cloud that obscured my vision thus permitting me to see a mere foot in front of my face and the vast white nothingness that lay ahead. The room could have been an assembly hall full of silent dreary bathers or I could have been alone to sit here with nothing but my thoughts. There was no way to know for sure.

Nothing stirred in the quiet white space
and so I spread out the towel beneath me and took the liberty of lying down. I placed the other towel onto my face once again to facilitate my breathing. I’d been in here for a few minutes now and my body forced me to inhale deeper for more oxygen. I took long and slow concentrated breathes and my mind wandered into a calm wilderness within myself.

I was in
such a world of my own that I barely noticed the subtle twitch of my right hand as it toiled over to my groin and roamed the neighborhood aimlessly. I let go of what few inhibitions remained as my hand continued to peruse my lips, finally spreading them apart to reach that ultimate tipping point. It found my clitoris swollen as the blood flooded to my center. My fingers moved about in soft circles adding pressure here and there providing tiny pulses of pleasure.

It should have mattered th
at I was in such a public venue doing such private things. I should have cared. But it didn’t matter and I didn’t care. I knew shame but I couldn’t feel the sting of it. Shame was the force that pushed people back. It was something I was born without.

My fingers continued to dance erotically
over my body. They lingered over to my hips and thighs and over my plump breasts and finally back down to my labia. Bill teetered into my thoughts and I imagined all of the things he would do to me if only I had permitted myself to delay my stay at his home. A minute or two longer and I would have had full knowledge of him. My mind toyed with me cruelly, as it had not allowed me to stay but did allow me to tinker with the thought of staying, long after the moment had passed.

Yes, the moment
had passed but the fantasy was not lying dormant. The crude thoughts of Bill and I, doing the things that people do, and perhaps doing some things that people normally did not do. Those crude thoughts invaded me now as I existed here in solitude bringing pleasure only to myself. I feared myself as the things I wanted to do to Bill were unspeakable. Of course, I wanted to mount him and take in all that comes with it but I also wanted to neatly cut open his skin and release his soul.