Until I Saw Your Smile (34 page)

Authors: J.J. Murray

BOOK: Until I Saw Your Smile

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Angela flew out of her chair and came back five minutes later wearing shoes, two sweaters, a coat, a hat, and a pair of fuzzy mittens.

“I'm only wearing five pieces of clothing,” Matthew said.

“Home field advantage,” Angela said. “What do I win when I win?”

I am being manipulated.
“Whatever bliss you decide to have later.”

Angela smiled. “Let's play.”

Angela lost only two shoes and a sock and had Matthew naked and shivering in no time. Once Angela had all four of her pieces “home,” she said, “Oh, I'm
so
sorry.”

“I used to be good at this game,” Matthew said, doing his best to keep his package warm. “What kind of bliss do you want? And, if I might add, could you decide quickly what that bliss might be? Parts of me are apt to turn blue.”

Angela stood. “We have laundry to do.” She went to the bedroom and came back with a pile of sheets and pillowcases.

Matthew stood, his hands folded carefully below his waist. “You find bliss in doing laundry?”

“I hope to,” she said.

Angela removed her only sock, tossing it and the sheets into the washer and adding detergent. Then she removed her hat, mittens, coat, sweaters, and jeans.

“Don't stop,” Matthew said.

She pulled her shirt little by little over her head and removed her bra.

“More, more!” Matthew cried.

She peeled her underwear down her legs before flipping them into the washing machine.

“Do it again!” Matthew shouted. “Encore! Encore!”

“Hush.”

Angela closed the lid and set the controls. As the water began to fill the tub, she climbed up on the washing machine, dangling her legs. “I want to go for a ride while we do the wash. It should take exactly seventeen minutes to do this load. You have seventeen minutes to give me some bliss.”

There's a naked woman on a washing machine, and I have seventeen minutes to turn her on.

This will not be a challenge.

He started with her toes, kissing them lightly while massaging her feet. He ran his hands up to her hips while he kissed her calves, her knees, and her thighs. He lightly touched her clitoris with the tip of his tongue before kissing her stomach and breasts, earning him a single “Oh.”

Yep. That's what I was going for. I have plenty of time.

He returned to and kissed her clitoris repeatedly until Angela began to slide closer to him as she tried to wrap her legs around his head.

“Stop teasing me,” she whispered.

“I have at least ten more minutes,” Matthew whispered.

He held her booty in both hands and went to work, his tongue flitting while Angela panted and raked his back with her nails.

Angela only lasted another thirty seconds.

“Damn, man,” she whispered. “You can even make a chore less of a chore.”

He squeezed her feet. “How do your feet feel?”

“I don't feel my feet right now,” she said. “But you can still massage them.”

When the spin cycle stopped, Angela hopped down and put the sheets, clothes, and pillowcases into the dryer. “Your turn.”

“You won, Angela,” Matthew said. “I should be giving you more bliss.”

“Maybe what I plan to do to you gives me bliss.”

Matthew hoisted himself onto the dryer.
I won't need that heavy cookbook tonight.
“What should I set the dryer setting for?”

“Energy preferred,” Angela said.

He turned the dial and started the dryer. “How long will that be?”

She moved her hands up his legs. “From the looks of
thing
there, not very long.”

While Matthew massaged her shoulders, Angela used her hands, lips, and tongue to bring Matthew to the brink of ecstasy.

Then, she stopped.

She looked up. “Is
your
load almost finished?”

Matthew nodded. “Oh yeah, it's ready . . .”

Angela bit her lower lip and gave one, gentle squeeze . . .

As Matthew held Angela close to his chest later that night, he decided that he and Angela would do a
lot
of laundry in the future.

Chapter 26

S
treams raced down Driggs Avenue, and customers streamed into Angela's all day on Saturday to get their coffee and sugar fix after three days of going without.

Matthew had no clients, potential or otherwise.
Couples were cooped up for nearly three days inside. You'd think I would have at least one divorce case by now.
He added nine months to the time of the blizzard.
Maternity wards are going to be full this coming Christmas.

“I need your help,” Angela mouthed around noon.

That line hasn't thinned all day, and she needs my help. I feel so privileged. I hope I don't mess things up again.

Matthew left his office booth and came around the counter.

She handed him an apron. “Put this on,” she whispered.

It barely fit him, as usual.

“You pour and bag, I'll cook.” She pointed at a price list taped to the counter. “Follow this.”

“What if Bet shows up again?” Matthew asked.

“Charge her regular price,” Angela said.

“Do I get to keep my tips?” Matthew asked.

“You don't have a tip jar yet,” she said, fading quickly into the kitchen.

I need to get a tip jar.
He smiled at the first customer. “How may I help you?”

“Large Jamaican blend and two apple turnovers.” He handed Matthew a ten.

Matthew snatched some plastic gloves from a box under the counter, wrapped and bagged two turnovers, and poured the man a large cup, snapping on a lid.
Let's see. Three for the coffee, a buck-fifty for each turnover.
He rang the man up and gave him four crisp ones.

The man left without tipping.

Have a nice day.

The next five customers left with coffee, pastries, turnovers, or cookiesâand all their change.

How does Angela do it? That jar is usually at least half full by the end of the night.

Angela brought in another tray of pastries. “How are we doing?” she asked.

“Steady,” Matthew whispered. “How do you get your tips?”

“I smile.”

Oh yeah. I need to smile more.

Matthew smiled and joked with the next four customers.

The tip jar remained unfulfilled.

I must not be smiling correctly.

He checked Angela's holiday notebook.
Hmm. It's Texas Cowboy Poetry Week. That might not work in Williamsburg. Neither will saying, “Happy National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. ” It might make someone with a sick sense of humor laugh, but... Oh, here's one. I will use this.

“Happy International Sword Swallowers Day,” he said to the next customer, a man about his age wearing brown corduroys, black socks and Birkenstocks, a black leather jacket, and a pink knitted scarf.

The man did not tip him.

I guess I have to pick my spots.

He checked the next holiday and smiled at the next customer. “Happy Open That Bottle Night.”

“Happy what?” the woman asked. She wore an oversized red down jacket that hung to her shins, her dark brown face round and shiny.

“Happy Open That Bottle Night,” Matthew repeated.

“What's that?” she asked.

“I guess it means you open a bottle of something bubbly tonight.” He smiled.

“I got four kids,” the woman said, “and one of them is only six months old.”

Oops.
He raised his eyebrows. “Just make sure that
you
drink from the right bottle.”

The woman laughed. “I'll try to remember that.”

She tipped him a quarter.

So
that's
how you do it. I need to rescue that quarter and display it somehow as “Matthew's First Tip.”

Angela returned to the counter an hour later, pressed a few buttons, and read from a slip spitting out of the cash register. “You had a good hour,” she said. “Any tips?”

Matthew pointed at the quarter. “That quarter.”

“Oh boy.” She stood on tiptoes and whispered, “If you weren't so Caucasian, you would have done better. But it's a quarter more than I had this morning.” She rubbed his chin. “And you need to shave.”

Matthew felt his face. “It's only a little stubble.”

“For later, man,” she said with a smile. “Go back to your work.”

“There isn't any,” Matthew said. “We are empty.”

She pointed toward the kitchen. “Then get to cleaning.”

“It's not even one o'clock,” Matthew said.

“I made a mess in there,” she said. “I always make a mess when I'm in a rush.”

Matthew saw flour on the prep table, the floor, and the top of the stove; some even hung in the air.
I may die of white lung.

After a profitable day, Angela felt confident enough to take a two-block walk to the Bedford Cheese Shop, where Matthew bought a wicker basket filled with six half-pound wedges of cheese, an aged salami, a jar of MeadowCroft Farm Amaretto Apricot Peach jam, a box of crackers, and a small block of dark chocolate.

As they ate back at the apartment, Angela again trounced Matthew at Sorry!

“You stacked the deck,” Matthew said.

“I don't have to,” she said. “I never lose.”

Matthew cut his eyes to the laundry closet.

“Not tonight,” Angela said. “Why don't we go downstairs?”

Matthew looked at his naked body. “Like this?”

“We'll wear some blankets down there,” Angela said. “You have to go first to get the booth ready.”

Matthew wrapped himself in a blanket and ran to the booth, pulling out the table and sliding the seats together. Angela, wrapped in two blankets, followed with a single candle, setting it on the nearest table. After they snuggled a while, Angela looked over the top of the booth at the window.

Matthew joined her. “Are we people-watching?”

“I wonder if anyone can see us,” she whispered.

“There's one way to find out,” Matthew said. “I dare you to stick one of your sexy legs out of this booth.”

Angela ducked down and wormed her foot out of the blanket, extending it gradually out of the booth.

“That's only a sexy foot,” Matthew said. “Where's the rest of your leg?”

“I'm getting there.” She slid farther to the left until all of her leg but her hip and booty stuck out into the candlelight. “Is anyone walking by?”

“No,” Matthew said. “No one is walking. They've all stopped to stare at a living piece of sculpture.”

Angela withdrew her leg. “What?”

“I'm kidding.”

She lay with her head facing the window, peeking around the edge of the booth. “I don't know if I can concentrate down here.”

Matthew parted her blanket and kissed her stomach, removing her underwear. “You have to concentrate?”

“Sometimes,” Angela said.

Matthew removed her T-shirt and kissed lower. “Are you concentrating now?”

Angela shook her head.

“You keep watch,” Matthew said, kissing her inner thighs. “And try not to fall out of the booth.”

By the time she reached orgasm, Angela's entire upper body was outside the booth. “Pull me back in,” she whispered, and Matthew gripped her legs, gently sliding her closer.

“You okay?” Matthew asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Anyone walking by just now would have seen about half of me.”

“And your nipples,” Matthew said. “How hard were they?”

She felt up his leg. “About this hard.” She shivered. “I'm going upstairs.”

“With or without a blanket?” Matthew asked.

“With, of course,” Angela said.

That's no fun.
“I dare you to run upstairs without a blanket.” He smiled.

“Are you kidding?” Angela asked.

“Okay, don't take the dare,” Matthew said, gathering the blankets. “I won't think any less of you.”

Angela peered around the booth. “No one will see me, will they? They'd have to be standing with their faces pressed to the window.”

“So . . . go.”

She took a deep breath, scooted to the edge, and took off first to the candle, blowing it out. Then she slipped around the counter and flew into the kitchen.

That is an image I will never forget. She's quite a sprinter.

Matthew wrapped himself in all three blankets and shuffled to the kitchen, where Angela stood shivering at the stairway door.

“You didn't?” she said. She tore off his blankets. “You go back out there.”

Matthew shrugged and casually walked all the way to the front door and back as Angela watched. “Nothing to it,” he said.

“You're crazy,” Angela said.

“And cold,” he whispered.

Angela smiled. “Not all of you.” She moved up the stairs, dropping blankets as she went through the kitchen. She sat on the edge of the bed and reached out her hands.

Matthew bent down and kissed her.

Angela looked around him. “Stand against the window.”

Matthew backed up. “There's a full moon in the window.”
And it's freaking cold!

Angela walked on her knees from the bed to the window. “Then you'll have to be quick, huh?” She put both hands on his penis, stroking gently. “The quicker you are, the warmer you'll be.”

“Shh, I'm trying to concentrate,” he whispered.

She squeezed gently. “You feel that?”

“Yes.”

“You feel this?” she whispered.

He caressed her hair. “
Oh
yeah . . .”

As Matthew drifted off to sleep with Angela as his blanket, he swore he had a slight case of frostbite on his booty.

But it was worth it.