The Bad Lady (Novel) Read online

  “I uh-”

  “Kiss them. Go on.”

  “What?”

  “Kiss the girls. They want to be loved.”

  While simultaneously frightened and excited, I proceeded to smooch her perky breasts. When Nancy, who kept ‘ooing and ahhing’, got tired of that, she unzipped her Khaki shorts, slipped them off in a highly provocative manner, as if she was performing a striptease. Then she took the bottom half of her bikini off. She had no pubic hair.

  “Remember, Billy, just like with those photos I showed you, you can’t tell anyone that we were doing this either.”

  “I won’t.”

  In a gentle, soothing voice, she instructed me to get down on my knees. I did.

  “You know I love you, don’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I do, Billy. You’re my boyfriend.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. And I’m your girlfriend. Someday, when you’re older, maybe we can get married; buy a big house together, on a beautiful desert island. How would you like that?”

  I did not say anything. I merely nodded.

  “C’mon, slide closer,” she coaxed. “A little bit more. That’s it. Wonderful. Now put your hands on my legs.”

  “Like this?”

  “No.” She grabbed my hands and put them where she wanted them. “Like that. Both your hands.”

  “Okay.”

  Now I am not going to detail what happened next. All you really need to know is that what Nancy would have me do her (and what she would eventually do to me), had been clearly inappropriate. Although, she kept telling me it’s what two people did when they cared about one another. Nancy had also told me that she had been exceptionally lonely lately and something about having had absolutely no luck with men ever since her divorce.

  “Billy, that’s why you’re so special to me,” she says, caressing my head. “Men my age, like my ex. husband, can be extremely difficult to get along with. They can be so unadventurous, so boring. So consumed with their careers-”

  I giggled.

  “That’s it,” she praised. “Be tender. Just like the way you were kissing my breasts. Oh, yeah! That’s more like it. Now you‘re getting the hang of it.”

  ***

  In a little while, Nancy, apparently satisfied, and wanting to put an end to the sexual foreplay, gently pushed me away from her nude body. Then she started to give me a speech as to why she did not want me to reveal to anyone, especially my mother, what we had just engaged in.

  “And do you know why I don’t want you tell anyone what we just did, or that I showed you those Polaroid’s?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not really.” I was being honest. I wasn’t sure. I wanted her to be specific.

  “Because Billy, people won’t understand.”

  “Why?”

  “They just won’t,” Nancy explained, putting a strong sense of importance in her tone. “You’re just gonna have to trust me with this. Okay?” She had taken my T-shirt out of the freezer and had it given it back to me. “Now put your shirt back on. It’s nice and cool. And can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” I reply, as I fitted my garment over my head and then casually yanked it down over my chest and stomach. “What do you want me to do now?”

  “Will you be a doll and retie my bikini? I broke a fingernail and can’t seem to do it.”

  “I would. Except I don’t know how to retie a bikini.” I meant that too. I figured there were probably many older men who did not know how to fix together the top of a woman’s bikini or a bra either. No pun intended.

  “Billy-”

  “I‘m listening?”

  “Don’t worry. You know what you’re doing. You’ve proven that already. You know your way around a woman’s body.”

  “No I don’t. I just did what you said.”

  “You silly little thing, you.” She turned her bare back, so that I could work on retying her teensy purple bathing suit. Eventually, somehow, I got lucky and managed to make an adequate knot. “See, you’re a natural. You might have butterfingers, but you definitely know how to tie a woman’s top.”

  “I guess.”

  “Now would you please hand me my bottoms?”

  “Sure.” I tossed them to her. “I don‘t know why they‘re so wet.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is your bikini wet because your legs were sweaty?”

  “No.” She cracked up, as she effortlessly slid her string bottoms up to her shapely thighs. “It’s not from perspiration. The ’Keeper of the Clam’ this afternoon just wouldn‘t stay dry . . . And guess what?”

  “I don’t know?”

  “I have you to blame for that, Billy.”

  Whatever she was referring to, I had no clue. Yet, based on the way she grinned, and put her finger up to my lips, I knew it must have been a private joke. A dirty joke.

  ***

  Once we had our clothes back on, it did not take long for Nancy to put the ice cream truck back into action. Again, with a laidback melody playing from the loudspeakers, this time, ‘Pop! Goes the Weasel’, we exited the isolated Dead End Street and went on the hunt for business.

  Soon, a jubilant group children, about a half of dozen of them, whistled and hollered for us to stop. Nancy pulled over.

  “Hello,” she says to a bubbly blonde girl who had eyeglasses, braces and a ponytail. “What can I get for you today?” I was surprised by how easily Nancy could spring from our forbidden sexual encounter, back to her regular course of business.

  “I want a Rocket Pop,” the little girl broadcasts vivaciously, while jumping up and down.

  “Did you hear that, Billy? This endearing child here would like a Rocket Pop.”

  “Who’s he?” the girl asks, gesturing, with a tilt of her head, in my direction. She flashed me a flirty smile.

  “This is my handsome assistant,” Nancy replies gleefully, putting her arm around my shoulder. “I call him ‘Billy the Kid’, because he’s a young outlaw.”

  “He’s cute.”

  “Yes he is,” said Nancy, with her busty cleavage overshadowing her considerate manner. “So what did you want dear, just one Rocket Pop?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Excellent choice.”

  “I want a Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich,” a chubby boy who looked to be roughly two years older than me, hooted from the crowd. He wore cut-off shorts and a camouflage army shirt that could have used ironing, it was that wrinkled.

  “That’s another good choice,” Nancy whooped. “Billy, can you grab a Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich from the freezer?”

  “No problem,” I answer, rummaging through the vast assortment of ice cream. The freezer was stocked. “There you are,” I said to the kid, stretching my hand through the open window and then putting, into his plump palm, the order.

  “That’s my assistant Billy’s all-time favorite,” Nancy told the boy. “He loves to lick Chocolate Chip Sandwiches.”

  “Me too. They’re the best.”

  Yes, if you’re thinking what I was thinking, you’re right. Almost everything Nancy had been saying seemed to have a sexual undertone. It almost appeared that she was getting off on teasing these children. I did not like that. Not one bit. In fact, her wicked sexual innuendo made me especially uneasy.

  Once we had finished selling this animated bunch of youngsters their cold sugary treats, Nancy wanted to get rid of me. She did not actually say that she had wanted to get rid of me, it was more of the nagging gut feeling I got. Nancy shut down and her normally upbeat personality became aloof.

  “I’m sorry,” she announces, as she counted a stack of money, presumably that day‘s profits. “I have a lot of things to do, Billy. My shift is just about over. So I’ll have to drop you off now. Again, it has nothing to do with you; I just have a lot of things I need to take care of. Household chores, that sort of thing.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I
understand.”

  Her next question put me on the defensive.

  “By the way, you’re mother doesn’t really think you’re at your friend’s house, does she?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “She does.”

  “No she doesn’t.”

  “Yes she does, Nancy. I swear. I’m just a little afraid to go home right now because my mom might hit me again.”

  “Whoa! Does she beat you all the time?” Nancy had switched the truck’s loudspeakers off, cutting off the festival-like music, as if she had officially closed down business for the day.

  “No. She only spanks me when I do something to make her upset.”

  “Do you misbehave often?”

  I shrugged. “Not too much.”

  “Let me ask you this, Billy, do you even like your mother?”

  “No . . . I mean, of course I like her.”

  “Listen honey, you either like your mother or you don’t like her?”

  “Most of the time I like her.”

  As she expertly steered the commercial motor vehicle down the road, Nancy glanced over her shoulder and probed my eyes. I sat on top of the closed flattop freezer, twiddling my thumbs.

  “I know you told me that you had accidently broke the living room lamp this morning. Other than for something like that, why else would your mom spank you?”

  “I said she punishes me because sometimes I make her mad.”

  “I get that. If you could be more specific though, what else is it that you might do that would compel her to physically strike you?”

  I looked down. Had to think for a moment. “Just stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “It could be anything.”

  “Are we talking about serious stuff, more serious than kicking your silly Nerf football around inside the house, and breaking a lamp?”

  “She doesn’t like it either when I get cookie crumbs on the couch,” I elaborated. “Or when I leave dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, or leave my dirty laundry on my bedroom floor. Things like that. That’s what gets her angry. But it’s always different.”

  While leisurely guiding the Good Humor cream truck around another sunny residential block, Nancy says, “Your mother doesn’t sound like a very nice person. Which I find rather odd, because on the few occasions when I’ve spoken to her, she seems awfully polite. Then again, that could just be an act. A performance. It sounds to me like she has some serious anger management issues. But I’m here for you, Billy. Anytime you need a safe place to go, just look for my truck, I’ll always be waiting with open arms.”

  ***

  Since Nancy was getting off work and supposedly had things to do, I told her to drop me off a few blocks away from where I lived, at my pal Andrew Keller’s house, on Cumberland Street.

  The year before Andrew and me had the same fifth grade class. He had sat next to me, which made for an exceptionally entertaining time. Our teacher Miss Holland used to warn us constantly to stop goofing around, but we rarely listened. I think we drive Miss Holland nuts. On the bus, in terms of misbehaving, Andrew and I were no better. We liked to pester girls, usually the cute ones, by leaning over our seats and tugging on their pigtails, or mischievously tickling the backs of their neck, while laughing our butts off. In those days, without a doubt, Andrew Keller my best friend.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off closer to your house?” Nancy asks, stopping underneath a shady maple tree. A flock of chirping sparrows took flight from the leafy branches, spooked by the truck.

  “No. This is good,” I told her. I saw Andrew outside throwing a tennis ball against the garage door. This was a game he played where he would pretend that he pitched for the Cleveland Indians, and that he had to try to strike out the greatest homerun hitters in Major League baseball, particularly Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. Andrew had some imagination; you’d be amazed. His other preferred thing to do was kick back, occupy his time with video games, which is what I hoped we would end up doing once we went inside.

  “Okay Billy,” Nancy says, as I prepared to exit the vehicle. “I have the day off tomorrow so I’ll look for you the day after that.”

  I climbed out.

  “And remember,” she stipulated in a subtle yet strict voice, “don’t tell anyone what we did. We’re special friends, deeply special friends, and we’re the only people who need to know about how we had touched one another.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I promised.

  “That’s my boy.” Nancy smiled. Winked at me deviously as I commenced to walk away.

  PART TWO

  THE KELLER’S RESIDENCE

  CHAPTER 2

  Just then, I glanced over my shoulder and noticed my friend’s mom standing at the screen door. Nancy did not park in front of the Keller’s property, she had stopped the Good Humor truck near the neighbor’s mailbox.

  All the homes along this street were middleclass. Some one-story, and some two, most were well maintained. Andrew’s residence was a one-floor ranch. The tan aluminum siding resembled real wood. A brick fireplace poked out of the black shingled roof.

  As soon and Andrew and his mother became aware that I was the boy that had gotten out of the ice cream truck, they began to walk in my direction.

  To my surprise, Nancy, rather than wait around to see if they wanted to buy a cold treat, sped away. In fact, she squealed the tires and disappeared around the corner before I had time to fine-tune my eyes.

  “Hey Billy,” Andrew called to me. “What’s up dude?”

  I stepped onto the Keller’s land. “Nothing much” I called back. “Just chillin.”

  “Chillin in the ice cream truck?”

  “Yeah.” Andrew and I always talked like that. Other kids thought we said words like ‘dude’ or ‘chillin’ to be cool. That wasn‘t true. We just picked up that lingo from wherever. “Me and Nancy drove all over town.”

  “You did?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Wanna play wiffle ball?” Andrew asked.

  I shrugged. “If you want.”

  “Or we can go inside and use my Play Station? It‘s up to you.”

  “Play Station,” I said, grinning. “I’d definitely rather play video games.” Andrew knew I did not get into wiffle ball. At least not much. In terms of outdoor sports, I preferred football and street hockey. Besides, why would I want to stay outside? The last time I had been to the Keller’s residence, a couple of days before, I had left a book bag full of video games. Some were new and I had yet to have had a chance to check them all out. I was eager to get started.

  Mrs. Keller, who had her hands placed securely on her hips, watched her blond-haired son and me amble up the two-car driveway. Although Andrew and I were roughly the same height, he had more baby fat and had a double chin. Yeah, okay, I’ll admit it; my friend was a tub of lard.

  “Billy,” Mrs. Keller says. “Does you mother know where you are?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yup. I’m positive.”

  As usual, I knew that would be one of the first questions out of Mrs. Keller’s mouth. If Andrew and I were not friends, my mother and Mrs. Keller would have gone their separate ways. They only ever spoke on the phone, or from their cars. And even then, the conversations were brief, they never smiled or anything like that. They just wanted to get away from one another as fast as possible.

  “So you’re telling me your mother knows you’re here right now, at this very moment, to see my son Andrew?”

  “Yes. I swear to God she knows I‘m here.” I probably sounded a little upset. “She said I could come over.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why?”

  “Just checking.” Mrs. Keller measured my eyes long and hard. She had light carrot-blonde hair brushed to the side. It cascaded down to her shoulders. The hair wasn’t straight though, where it reached her shoulders; it flipped up. I think Mrs. Keller
used a curling iron to get her hair to do that, because the sudden curl, in my estimation, did not appear to be natural.

  “Where are you coming from?” she asked. She wore a pearl necklace, a red summer dress, and white heels. When she walked, Mrs. Keller’s pumps echoed rhythmically against the concrete pavement.

  “I was with my friend Nancy,” I answered. “And guess what?” Andrew and I now stood on the wooden porch, preparing to enter the house.

  “What?”

  “Today Nancy let me sit on her lap and drive the Good Humor truck.” I said this more to Andrew, to brag.

  Based on Mrs. Keller’s reaction, I suddenly understood, or thought I did, why Nancy had warned me to keep what we had done hushed. Mrs. Keller had a shocked expression on her face, as if I had just announced that me and Nancy Sutcliffe had robbed a bank.

  Just then, on the next block over, we heard the carnival-like jingle of the Good Humor truck.

  “She let you drive?” Andrew said, bowled over.

  “Yup.”

  “Neat. You‘re becoming a regular big shot dude.”

  “Andrew,” Mrs. Keller interrupted, “his name is Billy, not dude. You know I don‘t like that kind of talk. Use proper English.”

  “Sorry mom. That’s what I meant.”

  Mrs. Keller gazed up at the tall treetops, toward the next block over, where we could still hear the ice cream truck‘s tuneful chime. “Billy, why on earth did your friend leave so abruptly?”

  “Huh?” I wasn’t sure I had heard her correctly.

  “Your friend the Good Humor lady, Nancy Sutcliffe, she left like a bat out of hell.”

  “Oh. I don’t know why she peeled out like that,” I confessed. I really didn’t either. It was a mystery. I decided the next time I saw Nancy I would have to ask her about that.

  Apparently, my explanation did not provide Mrs. Keller, whose first name was Stacie, with the information she expected. I say that because after I had said that I did not know why Nancy had peeled out, she scowled and then would not make eye contact with either Andrew or me as we stepped inside.