Playing Dirty
Scotch always made Coach Taylor fall asleep quickly. Then he'd be up again in an hour, unable to get back to sleep. That's how it went tonight, in the hotel, after the Lion's dirty victory at the big away game.
Maybe Tami was still awake. After all, she'd still been drinking with her friend when he had called earlier, and he felt like she had cut the conversation too short. He hadn't felt like that at the time, because he'd been dead tired, but he felt like it now that he couldn't sleep.
When she didn't answer the home phone, he tried her cell.
"What is it?" she mumbled into the phone.
"Hey, hon, sorry, did I wake you up?"
"No. I wasn't quite asleep. I'd just crawled into bed when this thing started vibrating." She let out a light, drunken giggle. "Vibrating."
"You have a good time tonight, baby?" His smile was growing. It felt good to be smiling. He'd been surly all evening. "It sounds like you had a good time."
"I had a good time. I had a real good time." She giggled again. "Hey, hon, I'm so proud of you. Winning your game."
"Yeah, well, I'm not as proud of myself as I'd like to be. We played dirty out there tonight .The calls were all wrong, the other team was playing dirty, and I felt like we didn't have a choice but to fight fire with fire, so I let the Lions off the leash. But it got out from under me. The game got out from under me. I'm not proud of the way we won. I don't like playing dirty."
"Sometimes you do."
Coach Taylor laughed without opening his mouth. Then he said, "Only with you, baby. Only with you."
"At least you won, though, right?"
Eric sighed. "Not the way I wanted to win. "
"That's what I love about you, hon. You have such a good conscience."
"Yeah, well, the guys seem to think I'm a killjoy. They don't find a conscience as sexy as you do."
Tami laughed. "So what are you doing, babe? Do you have the TV on? What are you watching?"
"I'm just scrolling through the porn selections."
"Ewww…Eric! You're not supposed to tell me that. You're supposed to keep that information to yourself. And you're supposed to pay cash so I don't see it on the hotel bill and I can pretend you never ever watch it."
"I'm kidding, Tami. I'm not ordering any porn. It's not fiscally responsible."
Her laugh was less drunken this time, more natural Tami. "Fiscally responsible?"
"Yeah. They charge $7.99 for one of these things. My imagination doesn't cost me a dime. I can create my own fantasies for free, thank you very much."
"Mmmhm. And how many women are in the room in these fantasies?"
"Just you, baby. Just you."
"I'm skeptical."
"I have a lot of fantasies that involve just you, Tami."
"Really? Tell me one."
"Uh…nah…"
"Come on, sugar, just tell me one."
"Nah," he said.
"Yes," she insisted.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll just make fun of me."
"How do you know I'll make fun of you? Maybe I'll act it out for you when you come home."
Eric laughed sarcastically. "No you won't. "
"Try me."
"Well…okay…there's this one…I'm in my office down at the school…no one else is there…it's the middle of the day but I'm the only one there…and you come on in and shut the door and lock it…draw the blinds…"
"Yeah?" She encouraged him to keep going.
"And I'm sitting in the chair. That one with wheels you can roll around in, you know?"
"Is that a crucial detail, babe?" Tami asked.
"It comes into play later. Trust me."
"Okay, so then what?"
"Well you walk on over to me, real slow and sexy like, right?"
"Mhmmm…," she murmured, "real slow and sexy…"
"And then…uh…you sit on the desk. And you've got on that red dress I like, you know, the one that kind of shows off…you know what I'm talking about."
"I know the one you're talking about."
"And you're wearing the matching red high heels, and you're sitting on my desk, right?"
"Right," Tami encouraged him, "I'm sitting on your desk in my red dress and my matching red high heels. After I've locked the door and drawn the blinds and walked over very slow and sexy…and then what?"
"And then you put a toe underneath the seat of my chair and you wheel it in real close. And then you slide off one of your shoes, and you put a foot in my lap…"
"Mhmm…Yeah…and then what?"
"That's it."
"That's it?" she asked. "What do you mean that's it?"
"That's as far as I ever get. That's as much as I need. "
"Oh, babe," Tami laughed, "Oh babe. Well, then, porn would be really, really fiscally irresponsible of you."
He smiled as if she could see him.
"Well, hon," Tami said, "why don't you think on that fantasy for a little bit. Why don't you think on that, maybe see if you can make it all the way to the next scene this time, and then maybe that'll help you get back to sleep. Because it's late, babe. It's so late, and I need to go to sleep here myself."
"A'ight," he said, a little disappointed to be ending the conversation, but not too disappointed, because he was starting to feel sleepy again. "A'ight, but I can't be held responsible for what happens in the next scene. It might be very, very naughty."
"I love you, babe."
"I love you too, Tami. I wish you were here. Sorry I kept you up."
"Don't be sorry for that. I love to hear your voice. I'll sleep better now. Goodnight, babe."
" G'night. "
/ AND THAT THERE'S THE END /