“Of course. Sit down, I’ll be back in a second.”

I hustled into the kitchen to grab the wine out of the fridge and the glasses out of the dishwasher while she sank into my recliner. Her voice carried. “I know guys are supposed to do stupid things to get laid, but you gotta be the only one who needs an accomplice.”

“Like I haven’t helped you a dozen times before,” I called back.

“That’s the only reason I haven’t shot you yet. That and because you don’t look like anyone famous, which would make it really hard to cast the made-for-TV-movie they would surely make about me.”

People meeting Jill often mistake her for an adorable and comfortably attractive young woman. They see masses of curly brown hair framing bright green eyes in a heart-shaped face, they see the generous curves lurking under the big gunky sweaters, and they get the entirely wrong impression that this is a sweet girl. It takes time — often up to five minutes — before her natural evil shows through. I noticed it right away, which is just one reason we’re such good friends.

We met five years ago in college, when she was working at Pizza Shack. I had stopped by to place a takeout order and she was the only one behind the counter during an extremely busy evening. She waved at me to hang on and then clearly forgot my existence completely while she continued answering the constant phone calls, one after another. My annoyance at having to wait quickly melted as I enjoyed the unexpected dinner theater: Telephonic Interpretive Dance.

To anyone on the other line she sounded courteous, helpful, and endlessly patient, but only I could see the hideously distorted facial expressions she made at the phone the entire time. It was hilarious. “Yes, ma’am, any topping you like,” she’d say, while letting her tongue dangle out and her eyes cross. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry (cheeks abruptly puffed to full bullfrog face, then a quick “drunken loser” expression), we don’t have pumpkin.”

I watched in rapt fascination as she flipped off a man ordering a sub and strangled to death a party ordering four large pizzas, each one with fiendishly complicated toppings requests. Her best one, I thought, was when she swung the phone in a circle, talking to it on the upswing, and still managed to get the order down.

After fifteen minutes of this I was still hungry but suddenly I didn’t want a boringly polite, over-the-counter order. So I pulled out my cell phone, got the number off one of the flyers, and called. She finished entering the last order, sighed, and answered my call without noticing me behind the register. “Pizza Shack,” she said, rolling her eyes, “can I help you?” I asked about their specials. She grimaced, then started reading them in a singsong voice from the menu. To my delight she made jacking off motions with the other hand while I placed my order, then she quickly stuck the phone in front of her crotch and jerked her hips twice, fast, before bringing the phone back to her ear. “Will that be pickup or carry-out?” she asked in an angelic voice.

“Pickup,” I said loudly.

She spun around and saw me standing there, smiling. I had to give her credit, she blushed bright red down into her blouse but her voice was rock solid. “Thank you sir, it’ll be about twenty minutes.”

I looked her in the eye and made my own jack-off motions, but with more conviction. “Thanks,” I said into the phone, “I’ll be right in.”

She stood there for a full ten seconds before bursting out in raucous laughter that made everyone in the place turn around. We’ve been laughing together, one way or another, ever since. It was us against the world and we took weekends off to give the world a fair chance.

She wasn’t laughing now, though. I handed her a glass of wine and flopped onto the couch, then leaned forward to fill her up again since she’d tossed it back immediately. She gulped that too, then relaxed and toyed with the glass rim. “And whom are we trying to impress tonight?”

“The nice new neighbor next door,” I said.

“And is this the nice new neighbor you told me about? The one who should be arrested for putting on clothes because it’s such a crime?

“The very same.”

Her eyebrows made perfect question marks. “And what services will you require of me? Do you need me to pay her for you? Hold your towel? Stick it in for you?”

“All of those would be welcome, but mostly I need ear candy.”

“Oh, she’s a next-door neighbor! Good acoustics?”

“I can hear her in the shower every morning.”

“Perfect. What’d you have in mind?”

This wasn’t a new thing for us. We bonded the first night, after she got off duty and I took her to get non-pizza Chinese food, and we’ve been through a lot of lovers together. Separately, I mean. For some reason we developed a brother-sister, police partner kind of relationship almost immediately that’s outlasted all of the other ones we’ve had. At least one of us has been in a relationship every day of the last five years, and we’ve always been there to back each other up. She was there with ice cream and rum the night Sylvia dumped me for a podiatrist, and again when Brenda decided in the middle of sex with me that she was gay. When Jill caught her now-ex-boyfriend Rick fooling around with her manager a few months ago I was there to help her SuperGlue his apartment door shut with both of them inside. I’d tell you what we did the night her now-ex-fiance Steven called to break off their engagement and used his new girlfriend’s phone to do it, but I’m still nervous about charges being brought over that one. She was with Ricky now, a nice guy with sincere eyes and, I?ve been told, over and over, very talented lips.

Jill ran a finger across the bottom of her glass and licked it thoughtfully. “So what were you looking to act out? Big fight with your ‘girlfriend’ so she can come over and comfort you with her amazing bosoms?”

“No, I’m thinking the old ‘I’m irresistible because I’m obviously a heroic lover’ trick.”

Her smile was beautiful to behold. “If you can make me scream for an hour, maybe she’ll try and steal you away from me?”

“Something like that.”

“Well… OK. But you’re buying me an expensive lunch tomorrow.”

“Don’t I always?”

“And several large drinks. I don’t want to mess up my throat.”

“Neither do I,” I said sincerely. She shot me a look but I maintained my cherubic innocence. She made the ’squishing your head’ motion at me.

Bottle and glasses in hand, we entered my bedroom and perched on my bed. “So how you want to work this,” Jill asked, kicking her shoes off and curling her legs underneath herself while I poured us both fresh drinks. There was a before-the-curtains-rise feeling, exciting and terrifying and intense.

“I’m thinking we start slow. We don’t want to make it obvious we?re faking it.”

“I never do.”

“Good to know. So maybe a little rustling and light moaning for a bit, and we’ll play it by ear?”

“Roger that,” she said, and lay back on the bed, arms spread. “Come to me, lovah!” she yelled.

I lay down next to her and rested my head on her shoulder. “That’s light moaning?”

“What can I say, I’m a screamer.”

“And what’s with the Beulah accent?”

Jill rolled over and toyed with my collar. Her breath smelled of wine and rich pastry. “Trust me, darlin’,” she murmured. “There’s nothing mo’ threatenin’ to a Yankee girl than a Southern belle. Y’all just lay back and enjoy it.”

“Technically that should have been ‘you,’ then. ‘Y’all’ is plural.”

“I think I see why you aren’t getting laid. C?mon, lover.” She smiled the smile of the gleefully damned and then she gasped, her lips barely parting, so convincing that I almost looked down to see what was going on. Her eyebrows questioned me.

“Mmmm,” I said back. We started tossing ‘ahs’ and ‘ohs’ back and forth to each other from inches apart. After a few minutes she started poking me at random, trying to get me to yelp even as she released soft murmurs of purest lust. I fought back by capturing her left foot between mine and tickling the sole with my toes. She swallowed her squeal, which made a more erotic noise than either of us expected. Blushing, she smacked me on the shoulder. I grabbed her arm and we cuddled into each other, giggling.

“Great,” I panted, “now she’ll think I’m a sadist.”

“Might help,” Jill said. “Shh for a second, let’s pace ourselves. Unless you’re a wham-bam kinda guy?”

“Not in this performance, I’m not. Wine?”

“God, yes.” I rolled over to grab her glass. “You’re sure she’s home, right? Oh, thanks.”

“Yup, saw her come home a few hours before you got here. Go easy with that. You get drunk, you never know whose bed you’ll end up in.”

Jill looked around with an arrogant, down-the-nose expression. “Dahling, anyplace else would have to be a step up on the social ladder, and possibly the evolutionary one. What would I ever be doing here?” she asked loftily.

I grabbed her shoulder and leaned forward to whisper directly into her ear. “Having wild, unforgettable sex with me, obviously.” I felt her shiver when I said it, and for a second her body leaned towards me. This time I let my lips touch her ear. “I think you?ve fallen out of the role, m’love.”

She pulled back a little, enough so I could see that she was flushed. “Damn, I’m working with a method actor. Right.” Looking me right in the eyes she let out a long moan that started from inaudibility and rose up, louder and deeper, until it ended in a breathless whimper. She gave me an exaggerated look of helpless passion, the sort you’d see on an amnesiac patient in a bad soap opera, and then launched a series of gasps and cries that would have convinced anybody at all that whomever she was with, he’d found a good spot. I found myself focusing on her lips and throat. Her long, tanned throat.

I went for it. Wrapping my mouth around the side of her neck I took the muscle there between my teeth and bit down lightly. Her hands clutched my shoulder and head, but she didn’t pull away. Instead she moaned even louder and added a little bit of desperation. Then she whispered down at me. “You’re cheating! You know all my hot spots, that’s not fair!”

“Sorry,” I said, feeling smug as hell. “I’ll leave it out of the Director’s Cut.”

“Two can play this game, me hearty,” she said, and she slid a hand into my shirt to grasp my left nipple between two fingers. “Say ‘Uncle!”

“I’m prepared to suffer for my ART!” I screamed. She was tugging and twisting at me, sending delicious sparks of pain up and down my spine. Mostly down.

“Wow, I thought you were kidding,” she said, watching my reactions with interest. “Those things really are sensitive.” Her voice was husky, strained, and it was much too warm in my bedroom for her to use cold as an excuse for what her shirt was showing.

I rolled back onto my back and gasped. “More pacing?”

“More pacing.” She leaned over me to grab the bottle. Her breasts brushed against my groin when she did; both of us caught our breath but neither of us said anything. When she sat back up to pour she looked perfectly calm. “So. What’s she like? Your mystery girl?”

I sipped slowly, deciding what to say. I was very, very conscious of how full the front of my pants was just then. “Great laugh. Big, happy smile. She’s shorter than me, but not by much. Nice figure.”

“Nice tits?”

“Very.”

“Better than these?” She sat straighter and thrust her chest out. Her large, round breasts pushed at the low neckline of her shirt, which had pulled halfway out of her skirt from all the rolling around. Thick nipples pebbled the cloth and drew me like strawberries in front of a starving hockey team.

I examined them closely. “No,” I sighed. “She’s a mere human. But nice.”

Jill flopped back down on the bed, making the springs squeak loudly, which got us both laughing for a while. I loved watching her laugh, it did such wonderful things to her body. Finally she said, gesturing to the world with her glass, “And she’s worth going through with all this?”

I eased up on one elbow and looked down at her. Her eyes were enormous. “Yeah. She really is.”

She smiled and stretched lazily. “Then c’mere and fuck me for her.”

I fell forward and pinned her, bedsprings complaining. I kept my weight off her and pumped at the bed to get the sound right. She bounced with me for a few minutes but then pushed me off, keeping her hand flat on my chest. “That’s not it,” she whispered. “We’re slamming the mattress, not installing cabinets. You do know how to fuck, right?”

I grabbed her arms and pulled her over me, rolling with her to pin her against the wall. “I’m not sure,” I said into her neck. There was an intoxicating scent to her skin, like wildflowers sprinled with brandy. “It’s been a while. Which one of us wears the funny hat?”

She pushed me away and lay with her arms at her sides. “This isn’t working,” she whispered. “We’re not staying in the mood. No one will ever believe this.”

“Really? I always figured if we ever had sex, it would be just like this. Lots of playing, moaning, bickering, and screaming. And that would be just getting our clothes off. You uncomfortable with this?”

“No, never with you. I’m just not into it, I guess. Maybe we could play porn really loud.”

“Or maybe we could just get you in the mood,” I said, and I ran my hand up her leg and under her skirt before she could move. Jill cried out and arced upwards as my fingers slid up and down the velvety soft cloth over her mound. Immediately my hand was wet, the cloth of her panties sopping and molding around her lips and folds. “This is you out of the mood?” I asked conversationally. She balled her hands into fists and shut her eyes tight but made absolutely no move to stop me. “What are you like when you?re really wet?”

“Oh, God…” she whimpered. I slid my fingers around more carefully, pushing her panties partly into her and resting the weight of my palm over her clit. She pushed up against me with little cries. I worked the cloth around her and found a rhythm that matched her hip movements, letting it get faster and faster. I could feel the muscles in her legs straining.

I leaned down to whisper in her ear once more. “I need you to be convincing, Jill. Make it sound good.” And on “good” I fingered her panties aside and curled two fingers into the hottest place I’d ever been.

She screamed, grabbed onto my arm with both hands and hid her face in my shoulder. I slid my fingers back and forth inside her, slick juices hot on my skin, and pumped hard while letting my hand smack her clit on the backswing. ?Ah! Ah! Ah! God! God! I’m… I’m… Ahhh!” She clutched at my hand and held it to her, rubbing up against my middle finger with all her strength until the spasms melted away. It took a long time.

When she pulled her face out of my shirt I smiled down at her. The skin between her breasts was a bright pink. “There. That sounded better.”

“You bastard,” she said, with absolutely no heat at all. She pressed up against me and sighed. “Oh, God, that was nice.”

“Thanks. I’ve been practicing at the gym.”

“I?ll bet. You gonna move that hand?”

My hand was still resting between her legs, two fingers still idly toying with a delightful little ridge just inside her. Her entire lower body was moving very slightly with my rhythm, like a mermaid lazily floating down a stream after a really good orgasm. “Do you want me to?” I asked.

“Mmm. I’m not sure. Let me get back to you in an hour or so. Ooh. Hey, Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“You heard about Ricky?”

“The guy with the talented lips?”

“Yeah.”

“The one that Bobby saw out last week with that girl you work with? The one that you threw a drink at last night in Bennigan’s?”

“Yeah. Dammit. I wasn’t going to tell you!”

“Why not?”

Jill sighed, obviously torn between the desire to curl up and roll away from me and the desire to open her legs wider so I had more freedom of movement. I let one finger slip out of her, oh so slowly, to stroke along her opening before sinking back in. She bit her lip and groaned. “Why not?” I asked again.

“I… ah, keep doing that!… I didn’t want another pity party. Ah! We’ve had too many, this would be… God!… just like all the rest.”

I lay down next to her, nearly nose to nose, the movements adding more emphasis to what I was doing. “No, this one’s different.” Her expression asked without words. “Right now,” I said, and I let my hand slip backwards so that my fingers slid out of her and stroked up through her lips. She gasped into my mouth. “Right now neither of us is with anybody. Think about that for a second.”

Her eyes went wide. “Holy shit, you?re right!”

“So you gonna make noises for me now?” Jill sat up and pushed my hand away from her. Immediately I knew I’d gone too far. Fun was fun, but she might really be upset. “Jill, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

She pushed me down flat on my back and kneeled at the foot of the bed. “We are completely unattached.”

“Yeah, but–”

“Neither of us in a relationship, both of us free to do what we want.”

“Right, but I didn’t mean to–”

“And I’ve always wanted to do this,” she said, and yanked my pants down. They stopped at my hips but she popped the button and pulled them the rest of the way off, leaving me waving tall. “Oh, that’s just fine.” She leaned forward and, without another word, took half of me in her mouth. I couldn’t help it. I screamed.

She pulled me out and rubbed the head across her lips. “That’s better. I almost believed that one.” And she put her hands and mouth to work.

Her long hair brushed against my stomach and I could feel her breasts and stomach pressing on my legs, but the rest of my world was her mouth and tongue and teeth and fingers. She brought me to the edge almost immediately, although in my defense I had been wildly excited ever since she walked into the bedroom. But she wouldn’t let me finish. Every time she felt the surge — and from my end it felt like turning on a fire hose — she stopped strolling and just licked around the less sensitive areas. “What do you want?” I finally yelled. “Money? You want money? My car? It’s yours! Anything!?

She held me firmly in both hands and smiled towards me from behind it. “I want to utterly convince your neighbor, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you’re in here having the best sex of your entire life, real or imagined.”

Sensing that a strong response was called for, I said, after a brief squeak, “Then hadn’t you better get on with it?”

Jill sprang off the bed and let her skirt and panties fall to the ground. Her shirt followed, then her bra. If the room caught on fire around that point I wouldn’t be able to tell you. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “Yeah, she said. “I think we?ve waited just about long enough. Five years, in fact.” She leaped up and straddled me, the soft hair between her legs just barely brushing against me. “But you gotta tell me something.”

“My ATM number is 3066.”

“What’s your neighbor look like?”

Even though my penis was trying to detach itself so it could leap up into her, even though the heat from her was driving me mad, I said, “An eighty-year-old Rotarian. Stone deaf. And away for a week.”

She stopped dead. “You mean this was a trick? You were playing with my vulnerability to indulge some fantasy you’ve had about me for years? There’s no one around to hear us fuck?” I shook my head sheepishly.

The biggest, more evil smile I’d ever seen came out on her face and stayed there. “Good. I’d hate to have the police interrupt this.” And with that she impaled herself on me until our bodies met with a smack and two loud moans. She raised up but I grabbed her hips and thrust up into her, not letting her get too far away before I could make sure that she knew, inside, that we were together. She ran her hands down my chest and drew her fingernails right where they’d do the most good. I reached around to cup her breasts in my hands. They were perfect, bouncing as she moved and spilling out of my hands, dark brown nipples rubbing against my fingers. It wasn’t sex as much as it was a claiming, both of us marking each other with nails and teeth and thrusts. And it was a playful contest too, each trying to get the loudest noise out of the other. She squeezed down on me and wriggled, her tight insides hitting all the right spots and making me yelp. I grabbed her ass and pulled her down, pressing my body up against hers until she cried out like a winning cheerleader.

When we could take no more she pressed her body against me and kissed me for the first time. Wine and strawberries. “I love you,” she said into my mouth.

“I love you,” I said back. “Wanna go steady?”

She laughed, the laugh I loved so much but deeper, throatier, the laugh of a lusty woman getting what she wants. “That’s the best sound I’ve heard all night,” she said, and we rocked each other into louder and louder exclamations of passion.

As it happens the police did show up — the neighbors below and above us complained — but Jill answered the door naked and no charges were filed. People tend to listen to her.