The Big Bang! Theory - A fourth--and final--short, erotic encounter of the Judy Banger kind (12 page)

What could he say?
Your openness and willingness to accept every bit
of me without reservation is a gift I don't deserve. Your trust
humbles me. There's a good chance you're the love of my
life.

Good god, no. He couldn't
bare his soul without committing to a relationship--the kind of
relationship that for him meant marriage vows. He couldn't ask Judy
to share his life without first confessing his sins, his failures
as a husband and father. She deserved the truth, but the truth
would send her running.

"That was amazing. You're
amazing."

She rocked back on her
heels, her butt resting on his thighs. Their bodies remained
intimately connected, but Wiley sensed her reaction. His rote,
empty words sounded as lame as he'd feared.

"Simultaneous orgasms are
like unicorns," she said, her tone both teasing and serious. He
could tell she was trying to make sense of his sudden lack of
engagement. "You hear about them, but nobody's ever ridden
one...until now."

Wiley pushed his dark
thoughts aside and smiled. "We rode the unicorn. Wow. I can die
happy, now."

Her grin disappeared at the
same instant his flaccid penis slipped from her vagina. "That's not
a joking matter," she said, scooting back and off the bed. "Buddy's
funeral is Sunday. I'm going to clean up." She stood a moment,
looking for the bathroom.

Wiley pointed to the closed
door opposite from the closet, but a part of him wanted to pull her
back into bed. Just because he wasn't good at after-sex talk didn't
mean he wasn't a fan of snuggling. Love-words, heartfelt promises,
bright dreams that got smashed to smithereens by inept doctors and
inattentive drivers seemed like wasted breath. He couldn't put
himself out on that limb again--even for Judy, the first woman he
actually could picture at his side when it was their turn to move
into a place like Heritage House.

Judy spent longer in the
bathroom than she wanted. Her heart insisted all was well. Lots of
men acted weird after sex. Wiley grew distant and vague. That
didn't mean she shouldn't be cuddled up against his long, lean
body.

Unfortunately, her new and
improved mind refused to buy the platitudes.
We didn't merely have sex. We made love.
They'd connected at a level poets would have a hard time
describing. But in the moments following coitus, Wiley shut down,
emotionally. She'd visited San Francisco often as a young bride and
she'd learned to detect the arrival of fog long before it blocked
her view of the Golden Gate. A fog bank of some sort had settled
around Wiley's heart. Disappointment? Worry? Fear that his son or
his high-class friends might find out he'd been with
her?

No. He's not that shallow.
He's real and solid and loving and kind.

But something was bothering
him. And second-guessing wasn't going to give her the answers she
needed to avoid heading straight to the nunnery.

She wrapped one of his
extra-large, white fluffy bath towels around her chest and stepped
out of the room. Wiley hadn't moved. He'd pulled up the sheet but
remained reclined in the middle of the bed, pillows plumped like a
puffy Game of Thrones backdrop. He opened his eyes and
smiled.

A fake smile.

Instead of tackling him as
she'd planned, Judy sat, one knee angled with her back toward the
foot of the bed. "Something's bothering you. If I were to guess,
I'd peg either your job or your son. Are you worried that I'll
create a conflict for you with one or the other? Or
both?"

He sat a little straighter.
"I'm not upset. I admit I am worried about you going to work for
Fletcher, but not for the reason you think."

"Pardon?"

"I'm not a prude, Judy. I
don't have a problem with you working at a sex club, but I know my
son well enough to predict
his
sex club won't last a year. He'll give it a shot,
lose a portion of his trust fund then get bored and walk away. I
don't want you to become a casualty of his nature."

A knife-like thrust of
reality hit right between her shoulder blades and twisted with a
vengeance.
Oh, my god, how could I have
misjudged him so badly?

She jumped to her feet and
started dressing.

Mis
judged
. The irony would have been
funny if it weren't so damn sad.

"You're angry. What did I
say?"

"What did you say?" she
repeated, corralling her boobs into her bra. She truly appreciated
her newfound flexibility that allowed her to snap the back hooks
without asking for Wiley's help. "Actually, Wiley, you said exactly
what my mother would have said if I were in Fletcher's shoes. Not
that I can picture that--" She shook her head to stay on track.
"Even your tone reminded me of her. It was uncanny. And that means,
in a way, I just fucked my mother."

He scrambled to the side of
the bed closest to her. She noticed he'd pulled up the sheet to
cover his crotch.
So much for casual
familiarity.
"What are you talking about?
Did I miss something?"

She pulled on her undies
and picked up her dress. "A few years ago, I quit my day job and
used my savings to buy into a fruit smoothie franchise. I did the
math. I knew I was getting in without a safety net. Everything had
to click in order for me to make it without losing my shirt." She
stepped into her dress and zipped the zipper herself.

"I had a great location and
tons of business. I would have made a bundle if one of my suppliers
hadn't gone out of business
after
I paid for a six-month stock of cups, which he
failed to deliver. No cups, no smoothies."

"Did you sue?"

"I got in line to sue. I
was told I'd get pennies on the dollar...if I wanted to wait five
years for the dust to settle."

He winced. "That's
unfortunate. Did you try to borrow--?"

She cut him off. "My ex
ruined my credit rating. So, I swallowed my pride and asked my
mother for a short-term loan. Do you think she'd get off her
passive-aggressive butt to help me? Hell, no. And she made damn
sure my sister and brother-in-law didn't lift a finger, either. Do
you know why?"

He shook his
head.

"So she could be the first
to say 'I told you so,' when I filed bankruptcy."

The memory felt fresh and
painful even though she'd buried it deep. She'd been so close to
succeeding. But her family hadn't believed she was worth
supporting. They didn't believe in her--and their lack of support
crippled her belief in herself.

"I'm sorry, Judy. If
I'd--"

She held up her hand.
"You're telling the wrong person. My ship sailed, crashed on the
rocks and burned years ago. If you want to support someone who is
trying something new, talk to your son.

"I have nothing invested in
Fletcher's business, so I have nothing to lose. I don't know your
son well, but he seems smart, savvy and goal-oriented. Am I the
most discerning judge of character? Obviously not, since I thought
you were...never mind."

She grabbed her shoes,
anxious to leave before she did something even more embarrassing
than sharing her personal failure. "I'll do my part to help
Fletcher's business succeed because I'm loyal and I hate to give up
on anything. But if it doesn't work out--and all you've done is sit
back and watch--then I'm going to look at this lovely, mind-blowing
interlude as one of my bigger mistakes."

"Judy, I'm sorry you're
upset, but I don't see how these two occurrences are
connected."

"Really? You don't? My
mother would rather be right about me than see me succeed. And
you'd let Fletcher fail just to prove a point. Maybe I
do
need to see a shrink.
Freud would have a heyday with this." She shuddered dramatically
then started for the bedroom door. "I'll see myself
out."

"You left your car at the
restaurant." He started to dress.

She pulled her phone out of
her purse. "That's what cabs are for. 'Bye. It was fun."

Fun.

Such a frivolous,
insignificant word.

She'd connected with that
man on a level one read about in romance novels. And, now, instead
of snuggling and cuddling and laughing and getting it on again, she
was sitting in the back of a cab feeling a tad tender in her lady
bits and emotionally plundered.

Her phone, which she hadn't
gotten around to returning to her purse, vibrated against her
belly. She snapped it up.
Wiley? Calling
to apologize? Begging her to come back?

Pru.

Talk about cosmic
timing.

"Hi."

"What's wrong?"

"What do you mean? You
could tell I was upset from one word?"

"I'm an intuit. Did you
know that's the name of an Eskimo tribe?"

Judy rolled her eyes.
"Well, sorry to disappoint, but nothing's wrong. Not really. I'm in
a cab leaving Judge Canby's."
Wiley's.
"We had lunch."
Sorta. He ate...me.
Her
naughty smile felt forced.

"Cool. But something's
wrong. I feel it. Unless it's that soup they served with dinner. I
think I saw seaweed and testicles...I mean, tentacles floating in
it."

Judy couldn't help but
chuckle. She adored her friend. Normally, she would have shared
every tantalizing moment of her encounter with Wiley, but not this
time. Some things were simply too painful.

"Hey. Good timing. Buddy's
memorial is Sunday. I know you can't make--"

"I'll be there. That's the
reason I called. My flight arrives tonight at midnight."

"Your flight? What happened
to Gerald?"

Pru's sigh held the weight
of another failed relationship. "Where should I start? The bar bill
he ran up with the floozy from Gestalt? Or, the limp dick that
couldn't get hard without porn playing in the background on a
widescreen TV. Porn starring the bimbette, Dewi." She signed again.
"Some things just aren't meant to be, Judy."

Judy bit down on her lip.
Wasn't that the truth? "I know what you mean. I just had sex with
my mother."

A loud honk preceded the
taxi's sharp swerve to the right. Judy toppled over, realizing too
late she'd forgotten to buckle her seatbelt. "Hey," she cried. "I
was speaking figuratively, not literally."

The cabbie's sheepish gaze
met hers in the rear view mirror. "Sorry."

"She's eighty-three. And so
not my type."

She returned the phone to
her ear. "We barely missed sideswiping a bus. That would have been
the perfect end to the perfect day."

"So you and the judge did
the dirty?"

"Uh-huh."

"How was it?"

Judy lowered her voice.
"Freaking transcendental. Best of my life. That convent is looking
better and better. After Wiley, I'm ruined for other
men."

Pru groaned. "You wish.
Don't make any hasty life-altering decisions. I'll be home soon and
we'll figure this out."

Chapter Eight

"We brought you a present,
Judy," the first Golden Sneaker off the bus shouted as she hurried
into the gym early the following morning.

The next six followed like
a Secret Service detail protecting POTUS--an acronym Judy only
learned after figuring out that FLOTUS stood for First Lady of the
United States. "Here she is," Martha, the ringleader, chirped.
"Your mother."

Judy's jaw dropped. In all
honesty, she would have been less surprised to see the President
emerge from the huddle wearing sweat pants and new-denture-white
tennies.

"Mom? But you've always
said only longshoremen and streetwalkers sweat in
public."

Her mother waved aside the
comment as if her daughter was a stand-up comedian. "Oh, phooey. I
just didn't want to work out alone. But these nice ladies insist
you make the process fun."

Judy looked at the group.
"Fun? That tells me I haven't been pushing you hard
enough."

Martha looked up as she
pulled on her weight lifting gloves. "We might have exaggerated a
teeny bit. Golden Sneakers is not for sissies, but neither is
growing old. Right, ladies?"

Everyone--even Mom--nodded
fervently.

As they scattered to their
usual spots--making room for Mom in the middle row to Judy's left,
each spoke up as if they'd been handed their lines on the
bus.

"We might have strong-armed
your mom--just a teeny bit..."

"...because we all felt bad
about you losing your job."

"And we were too gutless to
speak up."

"Buddy hit on every one of
us at one time or another."

Martha hooted. "A few--I
won't name names--may have given him the time of day--or night.
Unfortunately, you're the one who got caught in his game of sexual
Russian roulette."