Ruby Hears Everything

I haven’t had sex in six months. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve been having dreams about taking public transportation to unnamed cities and approaching strangers to feel up their bits and pieces, but I’ve told myself no more sex right now, not until I got my life straightened out because it always seemed like the dirty deed was getting me in trouble.

An example of this theory was the last man I dated, Frederick. He was a sexy, smooth talking co-worker with whom I had been flirting with for ages. After a few months of being pursued, I gave into his advances, and I learned he definitely knew all the right moves in bed. I know it sounds like a cliché, but he made me feel special, the way he traced the side of my breast when we were by the copy machine together or the way he fondled the inside of my thighs under the table when he took me out to dinner.

It was too bad he was such a corporate ass hole. When we were caught together in the conference room together during company hours, he was more worried about his work image than my feelings. Never mind that I was the one being eaten out on the conference room table with all my personal business exposed.

Even after this happened, I knew he still lusted after me. Every time he walked past me and we were alone, he did that tongue thing, not the nasty V sign thing with the tongue wagging between it, but it was more like mimicking eating me with the palm of his hand. I acted like it disgusted me, and yet I still felt a small lurch in my stomach that said I was secretly thrilled because I knew what his tongue felt like on me down there.

Just after my car broke down and my finances started to crumble, I was feeling lonely and vulnerable, so I decided to stop being mad about the conference room incident and I called him. He could barely keep his hands off me during dinner. His words were like slick heat in my ear about how much he missed me. There was no time for desert or coffee. We raced back to my apartment, where he yanked down my panty hose and panties next to my front door and fucked me standing up in the hallway.

Two days later, I called him for a ride to work. I was on my last warning. He promised he would stop by to pick me up, but he never showed up.

It wasn’t only the absenteeism that got me fired though. My female boss had been harboring a secret crush on him for years. In her eyes, I had gotten him without even trying, and because of this, she had been waiting for the first opportunity to get rid of me. I wanted to say something to let her know I knew the real reason she was doing this, but I didn’t say a word. I just collected my personal things and went home.

Still, I wished I had said something that day.

Things are so bad right now that I have to live with my cousin Ruby, who lives in this end of the world trailer park. I used to be so envious of her. She developed far quicker than I did. I remembered being at a hotel swimming pool. I was fourteen. Ruby, a year old than me, had a grown up bikini, which showed an alarming amount of skin. I had a one-piece suit. She was getting all the attention from the boys.

Watching them from the pool, I pulled my suit away from my skin, trying to fill the bust up with water, but not succeeding. The suit stuck flatly back to my skin. I contemplated taking my suit off all together, thinking maybe that would might me some attention, although my parents might not appreciate it. They were still pissed off that I had been caught playing doctor with the neighbor boy out in the field in a deserted Mustang.

My parents divorced soon after that trip. Ruby and I hardly saw each other, but we kept in touch. After I was evicted, she was the one who said I could stay with her until I got back on my feet.

Before I actually moved in, I envisioned us as reunited childhood pals, but when I got there, I realized I had no idea she had changed so much. She’d put on at least fifty pounds, and she’d lost most of her self-esteem to poor body image and massive attention deficit disorder. I’d always thought she was a little flaky, but I’d never been around her long enough to realize the full extent. Her thoughts leapt to any subject in a butterfly heartbeat, and her eyes frequently glazed over when you talked to her for longer than a minute.

I could tell she wasn’t that impressed with me either. She was constantly raising a critical eyebrow at my clothes. They weren’t even that racy.

After moving in with her, I felt like I could never get away from her. I didn’t even have my own bedroom. Mostly it was like a nook in the hallway with a twin bed. Her trailer was like a shotgun house, and the sliding door between the bathroom and my bedroom was broken. I could hear everything she did, from her snoring to her going to the bathroom. At night, I listened to her unwrapping and eating those miniature candy bars in her bed. She should be out getting herself fucked, taking her frustration out on men instead of on chocolate.

My one indulgence was buying day old bagels and blue cheese crumbles from the produce store half a mile away. I made a sort of blue cheese melt bagel thing in the toaster oven. Ruby thought it was disgusting. I thought it was glorious. I felt like my senses were coming back alive when I ate them, but it was beginning to show on my hips. I was worried that I was going to turn into her, perpetually sexually frustrated and overweight.

More than anything else, the lack of sex thing was starting to get to me. Unable to take it any longer, I waited until I heard her snoring one night, and I let myself have an early Frederick fantasy. Masturbation couldn’t be that dangerous, I thought.

In my mind, it was the first time we made love, or rather when he first fucked me. I was standing in front of him on the sofa at his place, and he directed me to which article of clothing to take off next. By the time, I lowered my bra to reveal my nipples, he couldn’t take it any longer.

Sliding my hand between my legs, I was remembering how he entered me from behind as I was bent over the sofa when I heard Ruby sigh loudly and flounce on her mattress.

“I can hear you,” she said.

I stopped.

“I can hear you, too,” I retorted.

Afraid that she would ask me to move out, I pulled my hand away and turned over on my side. Once more sex was getting me in trouble.

The next morning, she was wearing her pink quilted robe zipped up to her chin and cutting her toenails on the sofa when she said she had a couple things she wanted to discuss.

She didn’t want me to eat my blue cheese crumble melts around her anymore because they stank, and she wanted the blinds on the left hand side of the trailer always closed. Apparently, the neighbors were looking in at me because I was parading around half dressed. I stared at her in disbelief.

“You were the one who used to wear that bikini at the pool,” I said. “That showed more skin than I have ever showed here.”

“My mom got me that. I hated it.”

I thought she was kidding at first, but judging by her expression, she wasn’t.

“I don’t want those jerks over there getting any ideas,” she said.

She went to take her shower. I closed the blinds. I had to admit the neighbors were a little obnoxious. A woman in her fifties lived there with her three grown sons and some of their friends. There was always loud music, and their yard looked like a disaster with engine blocks, mangled lawn chairs, and chipped, faded gnomes.

They were not snappy dressers either. The worst offender was Mickey. I think he was the oldest son, maybe in his late twenties, and he had to be either color blind or just insane when it came to his clothes sense.

After her shower, Ruby announced she was going shopping on her own. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when she left. She was probably going somewhere to buy more chocolate. But I didn’t really care where she was going, as long as she was leaving. Once she was gone, I contemplated either masturbating or painting a little shelf that I had found in the shed for my room.

I decided to do both, but masturbating was oddly unsatisfying. I couldn’t get a fantasy going. Everything down there seemed to wilt.

Feeling slightly off kilter, I took a shower, put on a pair of cut off blue jean shorts, a gray tank top, and loosely tied back my hair so I could paint the shelf. I was sitting on the ground, my legs open, the shelf between them as I dabbed the corners with yellow paint when Mickey stopped by. He looked so greasy. I remembered hearing he worked at a salvage yard or something.

I noticed his gaze lingering on my legs. I looked down; my shorts were riding up my thighs, exposing a little too much inner skin even for me. I adjusted them.

“Is your cousin around?” he asked.

“She’s gone shopping,” I said.

“You know every time I come around to ask her about you, she asks me to get off her porch,” he said.

I stopped painting.

“Ask what about me?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. Stuff like are you single?”

I looked closer at him.

“Are you the one who’s been looking at me?” I said, motioning at the window.

“No. That was Billy. I told him to stop it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I resumed painting my shelf.

“If you need help hanging that shelf, let me know,” he said.

I nodded, hoping he might leave now, but he stayed put.

“So are you single?” he asked.

“I’m single, but I’m not on the market right now,” I said.

He nodded as if to say he understood, and he scratched his arm. His long calloused fingers on the rayon shirt drew my attention. He had to be handy if he worked at salvage yard, right? A light bulb went off inside my head.

“Can you look at a door inside the trailer for me?” I asked. “It’s broken.”

I knew Ruby would probably have a stroke if she knew he was in here, but my desire for some privacy was stronger than my fear of her. I led him inside the trailer and showed him the broken door. It would be so wonderful if he could fix it, but as he jerked it around, my hope started to diminish.

“I’ll have to see what parts I can find,” he said. “This door is pretty old. In the meanwhile, where is your shelf going?”

I showed him the spot over my bed. He looked at the wall. We were standing very close. He smelled a little sweaty. There was something else, too. I sniffed and looked down at my mattress. Was it me? Had I emitted some sexual odor with all my fumbling?

Feeling a little embarrassed, I caught his profile as he returned his attention to the broken door. He did have a strong jaw and good cheekbones. As if he sensed my gaze on him, he looked back at me. I realized his eyes were this amazing blue.

“You’re not too bad,” I said without thinking. “If you took a shower, shaved and maybe washed your hair.”

I thought maybe I had said the wrong thing, but he sort of blinked at me and said he had to get going.

 

The next day, I went to the store for more bagels and blue cheese. On my way home, Mickey leaned out his trailer door and called me over. I looked at him in surprise. He had actually showered and shaved, and he had put on almost coordinated clothes. It made a world of difference. I hadn’t known he had dimples and a cleft in his chin. To my further surprise, he invited me inside to meet his mom.

Making sure Ruby wasn’t watching from the trailer, I followed him inside. Judging by the state of the yard, I thought the inside of the trailer would be the same, but it wasn’t. The furniture was second hand, but it was clean.

His mom had found some sugar cookies from Christmas in the freezer. Everyone seemed quiet as we sat the kitchen table, having our cookies and coffee, so I told his mom about my blue cheese bagel melts. She said it didn’t sound disgusting at all, and I was welcome to come over here and make them any time I wanted to.

I actually felt more at ease there than I had ever felt at Ruby’s trailer. It turned out Mickey was the only one living there with her. He had kicked the others out because they were taking advantage of her.

When I left, I paused at the door to thank Mickey for inviting me over. He gave me a kiss on the cheek. His lips lingered against my skin for a fraction of a second. I froze, not sure what I was feeling, and I hurried home.

 

Now that his brothers were gone, I assured Ruby it was safe to open the curtains again.

I was dusting her countless unicorns on the shelf in the living room when I spotted Mickey trying to clean up the yard. He took off his shirt. A chill of gooseflesh raised the hairs on my thighs. He had the sexist chest I’d ever seen. With the ill-fitting clothes he wore, I had no idea. I thought he was lanky, but he was lean and ripped. And his tattoos. Not good ones mind you, but they were damn sexy. I nearly knocked over a unicorn.

“Sweet potato pie,” I declared.

Ruby heard me from the bedroom and came running. She saw what I was looking at outside and she sneered.

“That has to be one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen,” she said.

She gave me a look as if I were insane and returned to the bedroom. I stayed, my attention trailing back outside to Mickey.

 

A week passed. I kept hoping he might stop by to say he’d found the parts for the door, but he didn’t. Ruby had been more hostile ever since the window incident. She firmly closed the curtains again. She tossed out my bagels and blue cheese, claiming they were stinking up the fridge, so I threw away most of her chocolate.

Once more, she left the trailer to make a chocolate run on her own. Thank god.

Someone knocked at the door. I opened it. Mickey stood there, holding up a bag of parts.

I asked him in. I thought he might show me the parts, but he kissed me on the forehead, mostly on my bangs. I held my breath. Slowly, he brushed my bangs away and kissed me on the skin. His mouth was so warm. As I let out my breath, I felt this nervous hiccup in my stomach.

Tracing his finger down the side of my face, he lifted my chin and kissed me on the mouth. It was a sweet, tender kiss. It was nothing like the type Frederick used to give me where he tried to shove his tongue down the back of my throat. Mickey acted as if he had all the time in the world, and the only thing he wanted to do was memorize the taste and contours of my mouth.

I felt myself melting into his arms and leaning up against him. Slowly, I slid my arms around his neck. His hands gripped my rib cage. The kiss seemed to last forever. Every part of my body wanted him inside me, but we were still kissing. Maybe that was all we were going to do, I thought. Maybe he just wanted to kiss me, but suddenly his hands slid under my shirt to my bra strap, giving me a delicious chill of gooseflesh.

Suddenly, the front door opened with a bang. We broke apart. Ruby was standing there.

“Oh my dear lord,” she cried.

She looked at me as if I was kissing a dead rat or something. My raging desire for Mickey and my hormones must have gotten the better of me, because I didn’t let go of him and I looked her straight in the eye.

“Ruby, I need you to leave for an hour,” I said.

Without a word, she turned and left.

I took Mickey to my nook. He sat on the bed. I started to pull off my top, but he kissed me on the stomach. It stopped me. It felt so good. The amount of attention he was paying on my belly was heavenly, as if he was still discovering every inch of me. His lips were on my rib cage, around my belly button, gently touching the fine hairs of my treasure trail. Biting the edge of my belly button, he worked his tongue inside the whorls, probing, that weird tickly feeling.

The tension inside me gave way. It felt like a sack of rocks was dropped off my shoulders.

We peeled off our clothes. It wasn’t like stripping for Frederick at all. I didn’t want to show off or tease his dick. I didn’t want to be objectified. I just wanted Mickey’s bare skin next to mine.

I slid in the bed, held up the sheet for him. He got in. I’d never invited Frederick into my actual bed, much less beneath the sheets and on my own pillow. It seemed like the most private place in the world.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had done the missionary position, but it seemed more than natural for Mickey to climb on top of me. I had seldom really looked into someone’s face while doing it, but now we kissed and explored each other. I watched the expressions on his face and my hands caressed him.

Pulling him closer inside me, I locked my legs around his hips. After six months of not doing anything, I was overwhelmed as he stroked inside me. The twin bed started creaking. He flung the sheets off us because of the heat.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said in my ear. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for weeks.”

He lowered his weight on me. This was the closest I’d ever felt to anyone. Tears sprung up in my eyes. He saw them. He was filling me up. I arched my back to get closer to him.

None of the fake theatric sounds came out of my mouth, like I had offered up for Frederick. They were guttural cries coming from deep inside me. I couldn’t hold them in. Mickey held me close as I came, and a moment later he followed, his toes clenched so tight I thought they might break.

 

Feeling a little shell shocked, I got dressed with him and followed him outside, watching him go inside his mom’s trailer, my little yellow shelf tucked under his arm. I got this little weird pitter-pat of a feeling as if some part of me already knew I’d be moving in there.

I turned. Ruby had been sitting there in the lawn chair on the porch. My bedroom window was open. She had heard everything.

“How could you?” she asked, her voice strained.

I sat next to her, feeling her disapproval pouring out of her pores. Once more I was the bad girl on the verge of getting punished, just like I had been at my job with my boss. But if I hadn’t done it with Mickey, I wouldn’t have known what it was like to make love to him, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I had learned something very important today. Good things could come out of having sex, and I shouldn’t feel bad for wanting it.

“His mom doesn’t think my blue cheese crumble melts are disgusting at all,” I said.