The Numbers Game (5 page)

“Okay so
maybe congratulations are in order instead,” said Tabitha, “if you’re not after
anything serious then go girl because you’ve got it made.”

“I know I
do,” Serena replied. Don’t think she would’ve agreed to this break unless it
strongly tilted her way. “But it’s going to be tough, picking just two out of
the twelve.”

            Who knew
how many contenders would remain after all the factors were taken into
consideration? Serena had to mull over:

1.
     
Who was still single
and/or available?

2.
     
If they had moved,
could they be tracked down? and

3.
     
If so, as a minimum,
were they still at least decent gorgeous human beings?

“If I were
you I’d get started on this ASAP.”

            Ah
Tabitha, ever the dependable advice-monger.

“Oh I
agree honey. Which is why I have to ask, what are you doing this weekend?”

Upon returning home
from work, Markie realized just how utterly bare the house felt without Serena.
That was his first observation.  The second was the silence. After almost five
years of domesticated bliss, it didn’t feel normal to come home and not hear
the washing machine, dishwasher and TV going at once. He made a mental note to
look into getting a cleaner, maybe once or twice a week because now that Serena
was gone, who else was going to do it? Not him, his specialty was in the
kitchen and bedroom.

Bedroom, Christ,
that’s right. He could bring anyone he wanted into it now; anyone, blonde,
brunette, redhead, buxom or thin. In fact, if he felt like it he could go out
tonight, get massively plastered and take home two girls if he wanted. Mmm
actually a pair of hot lesbians didn’t sound like a bad idea. Markie put down
his briefcase and leaned against the hall cabinet, reaching into his pants to
knead his mass. Ordinarily at the first thought of a threesome his soldier
jumped to attention but tonight it hung there like dead weight.  What
the…Concerned, Markie pulled at it double-speed and released a heavy moan when
it finally extended to full length.

            Good gosh,
for a minute there he thought he’d lost his special touch. Once the deed was
done, Markie picked up the pieces and scolded himself for nearly losing sight
of the bigger goal.

“I can’t
afford to feel guilty about Serena,” he told himself. “I need to just forget
about her for the time being. I need to remind myself I’m doing the right
thing.”

All Markie
had to do was consider his sex drive to know that.  For the record his libido
was sitting at a time low, at geriatric levels in fact. If it weren’t for the
Viagra God only knows where he’d be… Serena would have thrown him out ages ago.
Not that she knew about his little addiction though. She was a highly sexed
being, with energy to boot while he…he wasn’t sure how to explain it but their
incompatible sexual history had finally taken a stranglehold on his libido.

            There
hadn’t been a problem at the beginning; Markie and Serena were known to go for
it left, right and centre. They had done all the kinky deeds new couples
performed– a bit of sneaking under restaurants tables, sex outdoors, in public
toilets, at the back of movie theatres, in elevators even. On good days he was
known to get it up numerous times whilst on bad days only once. Still it was an
improvement from his last relationship with Minroe who insisted on scheduling
the act in between facials and personal training appointments. The excitement
of having somebody new to love and caress had released all of Markie’s
inhibitions. As far as Serena knew he could’ve been Casanova in a previous
lifetime and not a dork with a chastity belt strapped on. 

            As for Serena,
well on the outside she looked like Marie Antoinette. 
Let them eat cake
was her attitude. Passionate, beautiful and incredibly unjaded were three good
adjectives to describe her. She had thought she could change the world back
then. Hell the silly thing still thought she could.  It was funny because
Markie hadn’t thought he was one to judge yet when Serena confided how many
lovers she’d had it had jolted him to the moon. Anyone else and he would’ve
walked straight out the door; he was that kind of traditional boy. But it was
Serena so he stayed.

It still
didn’t stop the truth from biting him to the bone. One could pretend that stuff
didn’t matter for the first few years but eventually it got to a person. Now,
five years later, his ‘manhood’ was a useless piece of crap around Serena -
without aid that is. Maybe it was the Intimidation.
She’s seen another
eleven of these
, a voice would whisper in his ear and a minute later his thing
would go limp.
How do you know the others weren’t thicker, longer, bigger,
better?
Sure, Serena insisted he was by far the best but she also told his
mom she loved her soufflé when really it made her dry-retch.

            It had
come to a point where eventually Markie decided this couldn’t go on. Sure he
loved his girlfriend, but that didn’t change the fact she’d been around the
block a few times. In an ideal world, Serena would’ve been a virgin when they
met. Yeah I know, unrealistic in this day and age but that didn’t stop a man
from dreaming. Next time he would check in sooner with the girl, not three
months later.

            But there
isn’t going to be next time, Markie cringed. Damn it, it was too late; he loved
Serena. She was everything he ever wanted in a woman, apart from that one fatal
flaw. And it wasn’t her fault he couldn’t deal with that crap, that he’d been
ambushed into long-term relationships beforehand with two highbrow princesses.
Had he been a real man Markie would’ve left the earlier girlfriends as soon as
he’d realized they were wrong for him rather than endure it out of the goodness
of his heart. No, it was definitely not Serena’s fault; it was his for being
the perennial good guy all that time. But what could he do? He couldn’t turn
back time; he simply had to pay the price.

This
three-month trial would be like checking into rehab. As soon as he had finished
dealing with all his issues, lifted his score to a respectable level and gotten
his manhood back into working order, he’d be ready to return and not a minute
sooner. God knows Markie hoped it wouldn’t change a thing between him and
Serena but even if it did, it was a risk he had to take…

Markie thought seeing
Rick would do him the world of good but he couldn’t have been further from the
truth.

“You’ve
arranged for me what?” exclaimed Markie.

            This had
to be some kind of joke. All day at work Rick had been Mr. Elusive talking
about some big surprise he had planned. Markie had thought, maybe rather
naively, that it was a drink fest, another big piss-up with the boys at the
local pub. From there they could watch the football game he was dying to see,
have a few smoke-accompanying beers and feel safe with the certainty that they
were far, far away from the grasp of any nagging woman.

“Come on,
admit it, it’s something you’ve always wanted to try.”

            Rick was doing
his I’m-right-and-you-must-be-crazy thing. He did it a lot when it came to talk
of sex and women, because like all single men he thought he was an expert.
Markie still hadn’t gotten his head around that notion. To him it sounded more
rational to have actually experienced a few relationships before you went
around calling yourself an authority on the subject. Hearsay and studying the
matter from afar hardly accounted for being an expert.

            But that
was Rick. The guy also thought Serena’s best friend Tabitha was a babe so what did
he really expect?

“No, I honestly
haven’t ever had the desire to give it a go. I don’t believe a man should have
to pay for sex.”

“Ooooh,”
Rick replied, waving his hands towards the sky. “Aren’t you Mister High and
Almighty? I should have kicked you off your pedestal a long time ago.”

            Yep, it
amazed Markie every day how a person with such low emotional maturity could
function well in society, as a top creative director no less. You could take
the boy out of high school but not the high school out of the boy. Good thing
Rick didn’t display this childish temper tantrum side to clients and staff
alike.

            Bad
manners aside, as a team he and Rick admittedly worked great together.  Markie
had all the organization know-how and get-up-and-go while Rick was blessed (or
cursed, he believed) with an over-worked imagination and artistic genius.
Together with Rick’s guts and Markie’s burning ambition, they had picked up
quite a few lucrative clients and built their little advertising agency The
Guerrilla Zoo to a respectable level in less than three years. It took other
agency’s at least ten to get to the same spot.

“It’s too
late; the girl has been arranged. The boys and I all pitched in forty bucks.”

“But I
don’t want to go to a hooker; I don’t need to go to a hooker.”

“Listen
the girl isn’t a hooker, she’s an escort. Big, big difference, so grant her
some respect.”

            Oh yeah,
very big difference. Next thing you know they’d be sending him to ‘respectable’
swinger parties.

“Sounds
more like same shit, different smell to me, Rick.”

 “Very
funny, but you won’t be laughing tonight at eight o’clock.”

“Why,
what’s happening at eight?” Other than the football match that is - he did mean
the game, didn’t he?

“Boy
tonight all your dreams are finally gonna come true. Put on your spiffiest
shirt and aftershave because rumor has it Biffy loves to please.”

 “Biffy!” 
Rick couldn’t have come up with a more bimboesque name if he handpicked one out
of a porn flick. “Don’t tell me you’ve given her my bloody address!”

“Course I
did. How else is she gonna find you and tear off your clothes. On second
thoughts maybe it’s better if you open the door completely nude. You only have
an hour with her so why waste any time?”

Rick put
his pointer finger to his chin, as if considering more timesaving strategies.

“You’re
really serious?” Markie asked again. He still wasn’t sure whether the escort
thing was totally legit. It could easily just be Rick’s way of testing him. You
know, of seeing whether his manhood was still in place and jumped to attention
at the idea.

“Markie,
you think I’d lift your spirits like that?”

“Yes,
definitely; you get off on that crap.”

“Then I
suppose tonight is going to be a pleasant surprise. Don’t worry about getting
me a Thank You card though; a case of beer will do just fine.”

            Christ he
really was serious. Rick was intent on getting him screwed by a harlot. And
Markie wasn’t sure how he felt about that. While other men might consider
visiting a brothel an appropriate stop-off after work or a night on the town
Markie had never taken that route. No he was lucky in that respect. He’d even
managed to avoid the compulsory rite-of-passage of losing it with a prostitute as
a birthday treat during high school. Blessed are those who are born on
Christmas day and manage to keep their virginity out of harm’s way and their
even hornier friends. 

This was
not to say Markie wasn’t curious, he was. He understood where men were coming
from when they forked over the hundred or so dollars. They were in effect
paying for the privilege of a quick orgasm with no strings attached:
I’ll
tell you what to do and how to do it and when we’re done, you are welcome – no,
required - to leave and never pop up in my life again.
Normal chicks did
not put up with that crap, and if they did you had to worry about whether your thing
was going to drop off the next day. The only thing that stopped Markie all
those years was the thought of his future wife. If she, whoever she was, were
to ever sit him down and ask:

“So Markie
darling, have you been with a prostitute?”

            Markie
hadn’t known whether he would’ve been able to look her in the eyes if the
answer was yes. Even if push came to shove, lying was never an option, unlike
other guys who kept their secret paid liaisons just that – secret. 

            Except
with Serena now it was different. He wouldn’t need to lie to her. Markie could
sleep with this unknown thing tonight and really it wouldn’t change a thing.

So why
not do it,
a voice whispered.
You’re on a break. Why not?
came the question again.

           
You
could always tape the football…

One would think that
in the lead up to his encounter with Biffy, Markie would be like most
full-blooded males, popping bon-bons or something. Common sense would have you believe
it but guess again. It wasn’t even seven thirty and Markie was already pacing
the living room, working up a sweat.

“Why, why,
why did I let Rick talk me into doing this?” he scolded himself.