DECEPTION
Robin Slick
'Why he thought about the stripper all the time he had no idea, but he knew it was close to becoming an obsession'.

---

Mortimer Storm rolled over in the middle of the night and saw his wife sitting up in bed, staring into space.
"What now?" he yawned.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep, Morty" she said, yanking the covers over to her side, leaving him shivering naked.
"What is it this time, Sharon?" he demanded, the sleepiness leaving his voice. He snatched the blanket back with a testy little grab.
"I had that stupid dream again. It's nothing. Really."
"Ooh…which dream would that be? Please tell me it's the one where you're the virgin sacrifice at Pompeii while volcanic ash spews from Mt. Vesuvius and nearby Herculaneum disappears from the face of the earth while you were having your first orgasm," he drawled.
"Very funny," she replied, sinking back down onto the pillow. "No, it was the one where I'm at that fancy party at Robert's, having a great time, laughing and drinking and eating hors d'oeuvres, and then I sit down on an elegant velvet sofa and I'm not wearing anything below my waist - not even panties, and everyone starts getting grossed out and saying Eww, get off the sofa..."
"Robert's house? Who's Robert?"
"Robert is the guy who does my hair - I was there for a haircut this afternoon, remember? Funny…I usually always have that dream whenever I see him," she said.
Mort pictured this Robert and his inevitable swishy little life partner at a chic soiree in their townhouse. He had to stifle a laugh. They sure as hell wouldn't want his wife with her bare pussy and ass spread out on any velvet sofa of theirs.
"Ha! You never mentioned this dream takes place at Robert's house," he laughed.
"It’s not funny. Yeah. And again, I always have it after he does my hair. I think I know why," she admitted. "It's because he's so cool, so avant-garde. I'm always trying to come up with things to make him laugh and make him think I'm just as hip as he is while I'm sitting in the salon chair. It's such a strain. I feel like a total imposter."
"So why not go somewhere else to get your hair done?"
"Men," she sighed again. "You'll never understand the value of a good hair stylist. You just don't find them that easily." She sat up again, flung the covers on top of him in a heap and started to get out of bed.
"Hey, where are you going?" he asked, pulling her back down. Christ, he was hard again. While she was talking about being half naked at a party, his mind was drifting to thoughts of the stripper. Between that and the fact that he was now wide awake, he was horny.
"I'm going downstairs to get a glass of juice. I can't sleep now," she replied, brushing a lock of freshly trimmed raven hair out of her eyes.
Damn, his wife was pretty. In spite of being close to forty years old, she still excited him. Why he thought about the stripper all the time he had no idea, but he knew it was close to becoming an obsession. He wasn't altogether sure it was healthy.

The dog got up from the bottom of the bed and snuggled between them, licking their faces. They named him Dylan, which would have been the name of their son had Sharon ever conceived. After years of trying, they settled on adopting a mutt from the pound instead.
"Dylan. Go downstairs," Mort said, giving him a little shove. He couldn't make love to his wife with the dog watching- it gave him the creeps.
"Oh for god sakes, Morty, leave the dog alone. Come here, Dylan. Give Mommy a kiss," she said, cuddling him and rubbing noses. Christ, the dog got more affection than she gave him sometimes. He made a tsk sound and rolled all the way over to his side of the bed.
After trying and failing to have a baby, they each went to their respective physicians for testing. Sharon's doctor gave her a clean bill of health and told her to "just relax" and it would happen. Mortimer's doctor, on the other hand, told him he had an extremely sluggish, almost non-existent sperm count. His urologist gave him a condescending pat on the shoulder and suggested couples' counseling and/or adoption.
He wasn't sure why he just didn't tell her the truth, but instead Mortimer returned home with the news that he was a-okay and his boys were fine and dandy and jumping at the chance to swim upstream and start a-fertilizing.
Despite her protests that she was wide awake, within minutes Sharon and the dog were snoring in synchrony while Mortimer laid there with his eyes open, wondering if he could jerk off without waking them. He couldn't stop thinking about Lisa.

Lisa didn't call herself a stripper, but told him rather proudly that she was an exotic dancer. He met her at the doggy park near their house one Saturday afternoon when he was walking Dylan. She had her beagle, Lucy, off the leash, and Dylan fell instantly in love--well, as much in love as a dog without balls can ever be. Mortimer was vehemently opposed to getting Dylan fixed but Sharon said the vet told her it had to be done for the dog's own sake if they didn't plan on breeding him. Something to do with his health.
"So we're not going to mate him?" Morty asked her in an anxious tone of voice.
"Uh, Mort….Dylan's a mutt. I don't think there's a market out there for that," she said, looking at him strangely.
While the two dogs sniffed out each other's genitalia, he introduced himself to Lucy's blonde owner.
"Mortimer Storm," he said, holding out his hand.
"My name's Lisa," she said smiling, giving his hand a quick shake. Lisa was tiny and blonde and dressed in white exercise spandex, voluptuous in only the places that mattered. She was his wife's mirror opposite. Sharon was tall and thin and dark with smallish breasts. He saw right away that unlike him, Lisa did not wear a wedding band. For one guilty moment, he wondered if he could slip his off into his coat pocket without her noticing.
There was something about Lisa that gave him an immediate hard-on -he thought it might be because unlike Sharon, she exuded a lot of confidence and looked him square in the eye when they spoke.
Sharon, on the other hand, was more of a distant dreamy woman. He remembered the first time he met her. It was at a party, and she was standing off to the side by herself, sipping a martini. He liked her dark looks and the fact that she was dressed all in black.
"Hi," he'd said, sidling up to her. "You standing alone because you don't know anyone here or just the opposite?" he asked, giving her a wink.
"Well, I am anti-social when it comes to cocktail parties like this one and I don't usually like to attend these things because they make me uncomfortable," she admitted, looking away. "But the real reason is that the fancy cheese on that table over there smells like unwashed feet and the odor is permeating the room. This seems to be the only spot in the apartment with fresh air," she laughed, pointing to the open window behind her.
Mort liked her laugh. It was giggly and made her light green eyes crinkle.
"You a friend of the host or hostess?" he asked. Sharon stared at him with her head cocked. Mortimer was handsome guy. At thirty two years old, a straight and unattached certified public accountant, he knew he was a catch and he'd grown accustomed to his success with women. But there was something about Sharon that made him shivery.
"The hostess," she sighed. "We take an art class together. Some of the guests here are fellow students, but they all seem to love the cheese," she smirked. She took a long sip of martini.
Oh good, honey, Mortimer thought to himself. Down that drink, sweetheart and let me get you another. He had visions of her long dark hair spread out on his pillow.
"And you are a friend of whom?" she inquired in a lazy tone of voice, acting as if she really didn't care but Morty knew his women and he knew otherwise.
"The host. We're business partners." She didn't ask him what he did but she glanced around at the well appointed apartment and he watched her smile slightly.
"I actually went into accounting with the idea that I would help the poor and downtrodden," he lied.
"Really," she said flatly. "How so?"
"I don't remember," he shrugged, giving her a wide smile which he knew showed off two very appealing dimples.
She did go home with him that night. They talked personal stuff and found out they really didn't have much in common. He was a man who dealt with numbers and statistics; she was a woman attracted to intangibles and art. But in spite of their differences, they had more than a pretty decent tumble on the bed. It was then that Mortimer was stunned to realize he'd met the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Perhaps it was because he believed he'd had some hidden insight into her…that this was a woman whom he could control and yet would never totally own. A woman who would give him his space and would never cling. He had no idea how he arrived at these conclusions, but they appealed to him. He foolishly told her he thought he was in love with her and wanted to see her again.
"No offense," she said. "But I really don't think I'm your girl. I usually go for the starving, depressed artist type." "Then why did you even agree to come home with me?"
"I was drunk?" She laughed.
"You always go home with strange men when you drink? You don't strike me as that kind of woman."
"No, but you are one straight laced hunk and therefore an unusual conquest for me. That, and I really wanted out of that party." She giggled again. "Shit, what time is it? I need to get home."
"You're not spending the night?" He was amazed. More often than not, his women begged to stay with titillating promises of waking him to epicurean blow jobs and/or omelets.
"Eww, no, I just met you. I don't want you to smell my stinky morning breath or listen to me snore. I'm out of here," she said, standing up and gathering her clothes. She saw him watching her and self-consciously tried to cover her breasts with her hands.
"Don't do that," he said. "You're beautiful."
"Sez you," she blushed, pulling her black dress over her head. "Ciao, Mortimer," she waved, backing out of the room.
"Sharon. Wait. I don't even have your telephone number. I want to see you again," he said, shocked at the pleading in his voice.
"Oh god. Like you're really going to call. Okay…give me a pen - I'll write it down for you," she said, wiggling into her coat and not meeting his eyes.
She scrawled down her addresses and telephone number. That night, he sent three dozen pink roses to her apartment - a first for him. Usually he played it cool.

She called to thank him, and he hoped, though he wasn't sure, that he heard the sound of honey dripping in her voice. He took her out to dinner the next evening and this time brought a huge bunch of wildflowers.
"Now you're talking. I'm not really a rose kind of person," she said, taking them from him and putting them in an oddly shaped pottery vase, which, as she proudly told him, she'd made in a recent ceramics class.
"You really like your art, don't you?"
"Alas, I am an artist searching for her medium," she sighed. "I take class after class, hoping that I find something at which I excel, but I appear to be jack of all trades, master of none." But there was no denying she was extremely pleased at the flattery and attention he was giving her at the moment.
You're all mine now, he thought.

It was a strange courtship. Mortimer called the shots, and she seemed to follow in a distracted sort of way, continuing to take her assorted art classes and sometimes drifting off and not paying attention when he spoke to her about accounts he was handling at work. But for whatever reason, he wanted this woman. Their relationship felt right to him. She seemed to acquiesce to almost his every desire, and even though many times it was done without much enthusiasm, that only made him want her more. They were married in a small ceremony six months later. For once she was extremely vocal -- Sharon insisted on nothing extravagant although he would have liked to throw a huge bash at his country club. She even wore a black dress for the occasion, which surprised him.
"This isn't an omen, is it?" he asked nervously.
"No. I just hate all that traditional bullshit and I'm really only comfortable in black," she replied.

Their marriage was a relatively pleasant one. Mortimer worked hard, made serious money, and they bought a luxury condo in the city which Sharon filled with expensive artwork and custom made furniture, terribly expensive, made by the finest craftsmen. She continued to take her art classes and while an attentive wife, still seemed to live in a distant world sometimes, which he chose to ignore most of the time because, well, it continued to turn him on. But there were other times he obsessed over it.

There were occasions when they made love-and he noticed this occurred particularly when she was taking a new class or involved in some other artistic endeavor -- that she closed her eyes and seemed so detached from the act that he would call out her name or grab her forcefully just to bring her back to reality, to remind her that she was fucking him, Mortimer Storm, Certified Public Accountant. It was almost as if he was just a dick, something that could fill her while she rocked herself to self-satisfaction and sleep. It could have been him or a thousand other men she was with and he wondered what she thought about when they made love and even asked but she shrugged and simply answered "I make my mind a blank, Morty. Isn't that what sex is for?" He couldn't argue with her there.
She appeared to take their failure to conceive in stride and seemed perfectly happy to merely be a good mother to Dylan.
His life was perfect. Well, almost. He would have liked a son to carry on his good name…to be a little league coach…to impart his great wisdom to the next generation. But that wasn't meant to be, and he'd learned to live with it.

And then Mortimer met Lisa and his obsession with his wife shifted to her. Suddenly, he became Dylan's new best friend, walking him several times an evening until he got a handle on Lisa's schedule and realized she worked most nights and walked Lucy in the early afternoon when she woke up. Morty began taking his lunch hour at home, surprised yet relieved to find that most of the time, Sharon was not around.
Lisa and Morty began to walk their dogs together on a regular basis. She admitted frankly what she did for a living. She had some college in her background, which was when she first started doing exotic dancing to pay for her tuition, and which for some reason validated her as a good person to Mortimer Storm.
"I was a dumb kid," she told him. "I was a sophomore at the university, taking liberal arts because I had no idea at all of what I wanted to do with my life, and my financial aid got all screwed up. Someone suggested dancing at a club, and man, can you imagine a 19 year old girl suddenly earning $1,000.00 or more per week? So then I thought…the hell with books and grades!" she laughed.
Mortimer looked at her blonde curls and was overtaken by the desire to have that beautiful head between his legs, sucking and licking his dick. He bet she swallowed….something he'd never asked Sharon to do and besides, she'd never offered.
Sharon always stopped him right before he came and climbed on top, rocking herself to orgasm first instead, her eyes closed and her thoughts a million miles away.
As it turned out, all he had to do was ask.
"I'd like to see where you live," he said to Lisa one day, trying to sound casual, his heart beating in his ears.
"Why, sure, Mort," she smiled, touching his arm.

And so it began. Their daily dog walking ritual now included her mouth wrapped around his cock almost every weekday afternoon. The first time it happened, Mort was so excited that the act itself only lasted about ten seconds, even though her dog stood by her mistress, intently watching. When it was over, Lisa looked at him expectantly but he wasn't sure what to do next. She held out her hand in a way so subtle he almost missed it. He opened his wallet and handed her a $50.00 bill. She took it wordlessly, and this became their pattern. Sometimes he arrived with a gift for her as well - a piece of jewelry, some flowers or candy, but he always handed her the fifty and she never turned it down. Once he even lifted one of Dylan's chew bones and brought it as a treat for Lucy in the hopes she'd go off somewhere and eat it instead of watching him get blown. No such luck, but he took comfort in the fact that at least dogs couldn't speak English and she'd never rat him out to Dylan or Sharon.
If his life was nearly perfect before, it was even closer to nirvana now.
He simply could not get Lisa out of his system. But he was also in love with his wife. There were times he felt pangs of guilt but he learned to ignore them. He had the best of both worlds.
One night he came home to find Sharon pale and hunched over the toilet.
"What's wrong?" he asked, alarmed. "Are you sick?"
"Yes. Leave me alone, Mort. I think I have a virus or something. Better stay away. I might be contagious," she moaned.
"Okay, okay," he said, backing out of the room. "I'll take Dylan for a walk," he said, even though it was evening and Lisa was probably out dancing on tables somewhere.

When he returned, Sharon was still white-faced, dressed in a black silk robe and sipping green tea.
"God, I feel so awful," she said. She stood up and handed him her empty cup. "I'm going to bed. I've got to sleep off whatever this is." As the week progressed, Sharon's health did not improve. Mort begged her to see the doctor, but she refused, saying it had to be a virus. She spent her days stretched out on the sofa, wearing only her robe. He was worried about her, but at the same time, he was annoyed because she was seriously screwing up his afternoons. He now had to park six blocks away from the condo and sneak up Lisa's street, which was only two blocks from his own home, scared to death his wife would leave the house that day and catch him.
But he was unable to stop.
Then one day, not finding Lisa at home, he decided to surprise Sharon with take out Chinese for lunch, hoping she'd be able to keep it down. He turned the key in the lock, and was surprised to see her standing in the hall, fully dressed, a suitcase by her side.
"What…Sharon…?" he was flabbergasted. All he could think was "Oh my god, she knows. She knows, she knows, she knows."
She stared at him, her face unreadable. Suddenly she rushed past him to the powder room, and still wearing her coat, vomited violently into the toilet. Minutes later, pale and weak, she returned, and picked up her luggage.
"Mort. I'm so sorry," she said, tears streaking down both cheeks.
"What…Sharon…I don't understand. What's going on? Are you sick? Are you dying? Oh my god…Sharon…talk to me," he pleaded.
"I'm leaving Dylan with you, Mort. You'll be a good father to him, won't you?" she said instead.
"Sharon! Sit down and talk to me," he commanded, gaining his composure. What the hell was going on?
She looked at him with such compassion and pity and suddenly he understood everything. She placed both hands on her stomach and looked at him with eyes full of wonder.
"Oh my god," he whispered. "Whose is it?"
She stared at him, her mouth wide open. "What makes you think it isn't yours, Mortimer?" He almost told her then, the whole sordid story about shooting blanks, but he quickly regained composure.
"Because of that," he said, pointing to her suitcase.
She backed away from him and almost fell onto the custom upholstered wing chair in the hall.
"So whose is it?"
"It's either yours…or Robert's. Oh good lord - my one and only one night stand - one fling in over ten years of marriage - and now this. I thought about DNA testing or something but I don't love Robert, Mort, it’s you I want. What a fucking mess."
"You're having Robert's baby? The fag hairdresser?"
"He's not gay, Mort." "Obviously."
"Robert was my mid life crisis, Mort. It was a one time thing. And stop saying it's Robert's child. The baby is most likely yours for god sakes. We used a condom," she said, turning away.
He nodded, willing himself to believe the lie.
"So what next?" he asked, for once not having any answers himself. He began crying.
"Oh Mort, I am just so sorry," she moaned, rushing to his side. "But to be honest, I have no fucking idea what to do. I don’t want to leave—I like my life here with you. I love our apartment; I love my art classes. The question is: Can you forgive me this one slip? I think for now, I'm going to spend a few days at my sister's house while we try and sort this out. I am just so not able to deal with anything right now. All I want to do is get out of here before I have to go before I puke again. Goodbye, Mortimer," she sighed sadly. "I just hope this isn’t really goodbye for good." He stood frozen as she picked up her suitcase and left the condo, closing the door softly behind her. He remained like that for several minutes, his brain screaming in outrage at their mutual deceit until finally, he collected himself and shook it off.
"Hey, Dylan," he called to the dog. "Come here, baby," he said, patting his head. "Let's go for a walk." Mortimer Storm, CPA, wiped the last of his tears away with the sleeve of his overcoat, reached down with a little smile to put on his pup's leash and headed for doggy park. Maybe Lisa would be around for a little playtime. He sure hoped so.
One thing he knew for sure. He'd make an excellent father.

© Robin Slick April 2003
R.Slick@verizon.net

UNCLE SAMMY
• Robin Slick meets 'The Candyman'.

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