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She’d wanted him. Still did, judging by the hot dampness between her legs. Remembering she had brought her purse with her up to the bedroom, she reached for it, finding the zippered side pocket. Retrieving the vibrator, she snapped it onto the tip of her middle finger, and moved up onto the bed.
“Maybe it’s been too long since the real thing,” she said. There were benefits to sex with someone else. Touching. Deep, slow, wet kisses that curled her toes…like those she’d shared with Jack this afternoon. And she totally got off on having a man suck her breasts. Her nipples were hard now, just thinking about it. She envisioned a mouth. His mouth.
But her tiny friend would do for now. She moved her hand lower, down her body, under her skirt. Along the seam of her thigh-high stockings.
“Jack,” she whispered as she brought the tiny, fluttering device to the lacy edge of her silk panties. “Who are you, really?”
3
A SHORT TIME LATER, after straightening herself up in the bathroom, Kate went back to work on her belongings. She grabbed the cigar box, snapped the lid closed and put it with the rest of her things. Loading everything in the car was a simple task, and she was finished a short time later.
Not even suppertime. In and out of Pleasantville in a matter of hours. A simple, unremarkable end to one long, painful chapter of her life. Well, unremarkable except for one thing. “Jack,” she whispered. Did he live here in town? He must if the barber knew him. So he was best forgotten. She had no desire to get to know someone from Pleasantville. No matter how amazing a someone he might be.
Judging by what had happened in the bedroom, however, she imagined he’d be starring in her fantasies for a while. Her private interlude had done little to ease her tension. Orgasms were lovely. But she also found herself really wanting some hot and deep penetration. Unfortunately, she hadn’t purchased any of the larger and more realistic-looking toys she sold at her store. “Might have to do something about that when I get home.”
Before she left for the last time, she turned to look closer at the neighborhood. Her old street looked better than it had ten years ago. Obviously some new families had moved in. Most of the duplexes, which had once been considered the wrong side of the tracks, were neat and freshly painted. A rain-speckled kid’s bike lay in front of a house up the block. Pretty flowers bloomed in the beds across the street. It appeared the lower- to middle-class residents here refused to give in to the apathy and depression that had sucked dry the downtown area. She smiled, hoping the kids growing up here walked with their heads held high.
Out of curiosity, Kate went back up to the porch to peek into the window of Aunt Flo’s duplex. It was, as she expected, empty. Her aunt had hooked up with the rich man she’d always wanted and had gone off to live with him somewhere in Europe.
Good for the Tremaine sisters.
Kate got into her SUV and drove away, fully intending to drive straight out of town. There was nowhere else she needed to go. Yes, she might see a friendly face, such as Mrs. Saginaw or Mr. Otis. But, with her luck, she’d run into someone who’d greet her with a smile, then whisper about her family behind her back. As had most of the people she’d gone to high school with.
But Kate hadn’t counted on one last tug of nostalgia. As she pulled off Magnolia onto Blossom, she spied the sign for the Rialto Theater. She sighed over the boarded windows and dilapidated sign. “Oh, no.” The one spot in town she remembered with genuine fondness, and it had obviously gone under long ago.
Some demon pushed her right foot against the brake pedal and she brought the car to a stop. The cloudy, murky afternoon had actually begun to give way to a partly sunny early evening. Lazy late-day sunlight flickered off the broken bits of glass and bulb remaining in the old marquis. Casting a quick glance up the street, she saw no one else around. Obviously whatever was left of Pleasantville’s prosperity lingered up on Magnolia. Only closed storefronts and boarded-up buildings framed the sad-looking, historic theater.
She got out of the car, telling herself she’d just glance in the giant fishbowl of a box office, but she couldn’t resist going to the front door. Rubbing her hand on the dirty glass, she cleared away a spot of grime and looked in. To her surprise, the door moved beneath her hand. Reaching for the handle, she pushed on it, and the door opened easily. It seemed unfathomable to her that the graceful historic building should be left abandoned, but to leave it unlocked and unprotected was downright criminal.
