Fluffy(31)

“What if I had been undressing?”

“Then I would have been extra glad I’d installed them,” he says with a short sigh at the end, voice husky.

“What if I—” I halt. Back up. Those words he just said... Is–is Will Lotham flirting with me?

He laughs. “Besides, why would you undress in a client’s living room?” He pauses. “Unless you really are a porn actress?”

I choke.

“What? No!” I cough out. “What if I’d needed to adjust the girls?”

“The girls?”

“You know.” If he’s watching, might as well. I reach in with my non-Fluff hand and adjust my headlights, if you know what I mean.

He goes dead silent.

“That’s a thing?”

“What’s a thing?”

“Adjusting–women reach inside their bra cups and do that?”

“Of course we do! Haven’t you ever had a girlfriend? Or a live-in lover?”

“Lover? Who uses the word lover? That’s like calling pants slacks. And yes, I’ve had plenty of girlfriends. No live-ins.”

“Wife?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“No. Look, Mallory, I’ve had plenty of girlfriends and none of them are secret girl adjusters.”

“That makes me sound like a guard in a women’s prison.”

He laughs again, then makes a sound of consideration. “It makes sense, when I think about it.”

OMIGOD WILL LOTHAM IS THINKING ABOUT MY GIRLS.

“Guys adjust, too,” Will adds, his voice casual.

“Guys adjust... what? Unless you magically sprouted moobs in the half hour since I last saw you, Will, you have nothing of importance to adjust.”

“You know.” He clears his throat meaningfully.

“Oh! Those!” I gasp.

“Last time I checked, I still had those. No girlfriend or lover has stamped ‘property of’ just yet.” Pause. A strange breath. “Yep. Still here. Just checked.”

“You... touched your... those while talking to me?” I squeak.

“Seems fair. You touched your breasts. Now we’re even.” His voice sounds like every cranberry cosmo I’ve had in a bar, all while waiting for transformation in the form of That Guy. You know. The guy who miraculously picks me out of a crowd, one out of a million, and tells me I’m the answer to all his questions.

That Guy.

Will sure sounds like That Guy, if That Guy ever actually existed. But he doesn’t, because he’s a fantasy I’ve conjured in my starved imagination.

But I’m not imagining it. He really said that.

Am I having phone sex with Will Lotham and I don’t even realize it?

“This is, without a doubt, the strangest client conversation I’ve ever had,” I blurt out. Innuendo dies when exposed to bluntness.

“TMZ has photos to prove that’s not true,” he counters. “I cannot imagine that your interactions with Spatula and Beastman weren’t worse.”

“You have a point.”

Laughter booms through the phone, along with a sigh, then a swallow that goes straight to my bloodstream. “How’s the house?”

“It’s beautiful.” Now we’re on firmer ground.

Firm.

No, Mallory! No! Stop thinking about firm and twelve inches and Will touching his balls while you touch your breasts and— “It is. Why isn’t it selling?” Will’s voice is rich and complex. It reminds me of college radio, when you’re listening late on a Saturday night while everyone else is out on their third drinking binge of the week and you just want to catch up on political philosophy and introductory Spanish. The quirky, smart guy with the whiskey voice who plays a mix of Depeche Mode, Thermal and a Quarter, and college bands that are going to break out five years later and be called an overnight sensation but you'll know better.

You and your local college DJ with that voice that lights up your limbic system and melts your panties.

“Why isn’t this house selling? Because you have a secret porn production company running out of the house?” I choke out, trying to lean casually against the cool marble counter with panties that are in flames.

“Ah, so you figured it out,” he says in a conspirator’s voice, amusement tinging his words. “You’re a smart woman. I should have known you’d put the pieces together.”

“You mean there was no rental? This house really was a movie set? You’re actually Spatula and Beastman’s boss? I knew it. Will Lotham–former Harmony Hills quarterback, Rhodes Scholar, and king of the creampie scene.”

I didn’t know you could feel a spit take through the phone.

“For someone who claims she had no idea what a fluffer was, you’ve got a dirty mouth, Mallory.” He makes a sound, deep and amused, that connects to every red blood cell in my body, setting it aglow. “A dirty, filthy mouth.”

My dirty mouth goes dry.

Other filthy parts of me get very, very wet.

I breathe. I know I breathe because I don’t pass out, and generally speaking, that’s a good indicator of consciousness. Silence fills the air between us, no one making a sound. Nothing but the heavy rasp of breath.

As seconds tick by, I become more turned on, the outrageous cocoon of this surreal conversation spinning me into a hyper-aware state. He’s not even in the room with me. Not within my visual zone. We’re miles apart, connected only by jokes and innuendos.