On Suburban Knees
My adventure, if you can call it that, began at a Starbucks on an early May Saturday morning. I sat on a tall stool with my black coffee--nothing elaborate--at the counter that overlooked the front of the store after finishing an hour run along a nearby path. It was not far from my apartment and in the middle of the main street in an affluent New York City suburb.
I was
between relationships
as they say and was content with my one bedroom a five minute walk from the station and thanks to my running and use of my building's gym, I was in pretty good shape for a guy in his late twenties.
It was a fine spring morning, and I had a slight coating of sweat and relished the thought of getting home and taking a nice long shower before figuring out what I was going to do for the day.
As I say, it was into my weekend routine. As I scrolled my phone, a woman asked if the stool to my right was taken, and when I said it wasn't, she sat down with a muffin and whatever coffee concoction she'd gotten for herself. I didn't get much of a look at her and figured I should be off in a minute or two so I wouldn't gross her out with my odor.
Before I could leave, though, she surprised me by asking if she could have a brief word.
"I have a proposition for you," she said, and I turned to study her wondering, frankly, whether she was some sort of escort working the suburbs and, I must say, she could have pulled it off. She was pretty but not too pretty. Probably early thirties, brown hair, which was in a ponytail, and leggings below a loose t-shirt. She looked to have come straight from the yoga studio across the street.
She smiled. "Not
that
sort of proposition."
"The furthest thing from my mind," I said, and she told me I was an awful liar.
"No, I'm curious about whether you're, well, curious."
"About what?"
"I've seen you come in here the last few weeks and I looked at you and thought"--she lowered her voice--"that you might be worth talking to about a little project I have going in town."
"Project?"
She glanced out front. "Look. It's a little personal. Can we take this outside?"
As we left the café, a couple left a small table in the corner of its patio, and we moved to it. I was beginning to get chilled as my sweat was drying, but she said it wouldn't take long.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a card.
"I'll cut to the chase. Would you be interested in earning a hundred dollars for an hour's work, work of the sort you might like?"
"You've completely lost me."
She leaned in closer as I tightened my grip on my cup. "Have you ever sucked a cock?"
I pulled back more in confusion than revulsion.
"What kind of question is that?"
"I mean no disrespect. It's a simple question and I assure you it's relevant to my little proposition. Pardon the expression."
I leaned back in. "I mean, it's been a while, but I did have a phase when I lived in the City after I graduated."
"Did you...like it?"
"Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn't. It's only been women for the past few years."