Lady Behind the Wall
By Zander Jaruk
Copyright 2011 Zander Jaruk
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Cover design by Valerie Thompson
Other Smashwords books by Zander Jaruk
My China Marker
Sorodna Dusa
Four Erotic Adventures
Hurrah for the Pirate King
Chapter 1
I sat in the back of the Galaxy Club, moodily communing with Jack Daniels. It had been a rough day, culminating with my girlfriend moving out. I replayed our final conversation in my head.
“What’s going on?” I’d asked, coming home after a hard day’s work running piping and installing the kitchen sinks and bathroom fixtures in a new restaurant going in on Clermont. I needed a shower and a change of clothes badly, but not so badly that I didn’t notice Debbie, pretty as always, coming down the stairs with a suitcase in hand. Two more sat just inside the front door.
“I’m leaving, John. I won’t be back.”
“But why? I thought you – we – were happy, that we were progressing nicely!”
“Well, you thought wrong, pal. My agent has signed me up for a six month southwest and West Coast club tour. Oil tycoons, Internet millionaires, doctors, athletes and movie stars. If I can’t latch onto something good on this tour, I’m not the girl I think I am. This time next year, I’ll be sunning myself by the pool and admiring my diamonds while I decide which wine to have with the truffles and the trout almandine.
“Don’t take it so hard, Johnny. All you and I ever were was a convenience. You got to fuck a gorgeous exotic dancer and have all your tiresome blue collar buddies envy you; and I got someone to take care of things while I worked my way up into the majors. It never was serious. I’ll just leave the keys on the hall table. Later!”
Perhaps our liaison hadn’t been more than a passing convenience to Debbie, but I had fallen for her. Fallen hard. We’d met right here in the Galaxy between sets. She was the only singing terpsichorean ecdysiast I had ever heard about. Not a bad voice, a lush body with a healthy sexual appetite… and all the morals of a diamondback rattlesnake, apparently. I took a sip of my drink, trying to decide if I wanted to get drunk or not. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“I heard what happened. You want to talk about it?”
I nodded.
“C’mon back into my office.” I obediently got up and followed Lacey Starr, owner of the Galaxy, into her office.
It’s a remarkable room. It stretches the width of the club and is walled on three sides with one-way mirror glass, half-height in the front and apparently paneled with full height mirrors alternating with oak panels in the corridors. From inside you can see into the two corridors leading to the restrooms, the coatroom and the ATM machines, and out over the bar and the side tables toward the pit and the stage. Lacey could monitor everything with security cameras and does in fact maintain them for insurance and legal purposes, but she prefers to rely on her own eyes and the bouncers who sit by those front windows ready to put a stop to trouble before it starts. There has never to my knowledge been a serious brawl in the Galaxy Club.
Lacey’s real name is Natasha Rambova, Tasha to her friends. She was a headlining stripper and soft-porn star in her day, but unlike most women in that line of work she saved her money and invested it well. She has a head for business, which was why she is now comfortably well off when most of her contemporaries have faded into obscure poverty. She still has a fine figure and her hair is the same crown of flame it was when she was onstage. She has never admitted to using henna.
We met shortly after Tasha opened the Galaxy, when one of her dancers dropped a diamond ring down a sink and got her hand hopelessly stuck trying to get it back. JM Plumbing & Heating (the company I own) advertises 24 hour a day, 7 days a week service, which we take in turns after business hours and on weekends. I was the on-call plumber the night Lacey called. The fact that I’d been able to extricate her dancer without injury and recover the ring without having to destroy the plumbing had impressed her sufficiently that she’d given me a retainer as the club’s plumber. The Galaxy had become my regular hangout and I’d done more than a little business here over the years. We sat down on a leather couch and I placed my drink on the coffee table. She looked compassionately at me; at least I thought that was her expression.
“John, I know you have Asperger’s Syndrome and have a very hard time reading people‘s physical and social cues. But I never thought you would take that scheming little bitch for serious. She’s after a position in society. Meaning no offense, my friend, but you just don’t measure up to her vision of the ideal mate. She has a whole checklist of standards her husband must meet. You aren’t rich enough, famous enough, in a profession with cachet enough or of high enough social standing to fit into her scheme to become a Very Important Person. If I’d known you were sweet on her – ”
“Well, Tasha, you didn’t!” I snapped, taking a gulp of my drink. Her eyes crinkled but I couldn’t tell if she was amused, frightened or angry at my outburst. “I was laboring under the delusion I had something going with her, with marriage not beyond the realm of possibility in a year or two. I feel like four kinds of idiot. Reevaluating, my analysis is that in Debbie’s mind I was an expedient measure. I can see now all I ever was to her was a free hotel and automatic teller machine. Conceding the sex was marvelous, that doesn’t ease the mental anguish at the moment. Difficult as it is for me as an adult male to admit this, she used her wiles to keep the mark gulled. Intercourse meant less to her than inserting a tampon, and likely not as much.”
Tasha sat back and motioned to one of her bouncers, miming to pour her a drink and bring it over. She took a sip of it and looked at me over the rim of the glass.
“How old are you, John?”
“I passed the big four-oh last birthday,” I said sourly. Without a girlfriend in sight or prospect, I’d observed the day by completing a particularly difficult furnace repair for the elementary school necessitated by a winter power failure and subsequent freeze-up so the school could open on time on Monday.
“How many girls have you lived with?”
“Three, counting her, but never of long duration. Never longer than a couple of months.”
“Why did your other girlfriends leave?”
“They alleged I wasn’t sensitive to them, that I did not pay proper attention to obvious signals or look soulfully into their eyes. And they all got upset over incidents I thought were trivial. That sort of thing.”
“And were you sensitive to them?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I did not forget anniversaries, even silly ones like having first made their acquaintance three months ago, or that it was a month since they had first cohabited with me. I was always giving them little gifts, so they’d know I cared. I even remembered to put down the toilet seat every time.” I tried to smile to show I was making a joke, the way the books say you should.
Tasha frowned and stared into her drink. At last she said, “Have you considered looking at some of the mail-order bride sites online? That was how I got to America. Back then it was a slow process compared to now.
“You paid a fee to the agency and they would take pictures and put them in a book they would send to men in America. The Americans would look you over and read your biography and if they liked you, they would write to you. Eventually, maybe one or two would like you well enough from your letters that they would come and visit you over there. One of them asked me to marry him and I leaped at the chance to come to America. I took American citizenship when I married him. It was fine for a couple of months. Then he took to beating and raping me. Finally I fled to a woman’s shelter and I hooked up with an agent and become a dancer far from the city he lived in. At that, I was lucky.
“Today, it is faster and there are more checks on the would-be grooms. Before these agencies will set up meetings, they run background checks on the men and on the women too, to weed out the bad apples. Maybe you should give that a try. There are lots of beauties from behind the old Iron Curtain who would go for a guy like you, John.”
“Not so many as you might think, Tasha. I actually have looked at two or three of those websites. If the pictures and the short form biographical information looked good, I bought their addresses and wrote to them, either email or airmail depending on their computer access.
“The first thing the women wanted to know, each and every time, was what kind of car I drove. Next, how large a house I owned. Then, what kind of work I did. Then, how much money I make, a question I find greedy bordering on mercenary and would not answer except in the most general terms. Such exchanges always ended with them telling me they weren’t interested in taking things further; forget about joining one of those headlong meet-and-greet tours and making actual contact. I just don’t have the prestige they want in their dream Western husband, even though I own my own business, a piece of another successful company, and netted half a million dollars free and clear last year after taxes, salaries, bonuses, insurance payments, buying two new trucks, replenishing stock and whatnot.”
I looked Tasha right in the eye, not without difficulty. “Maybe I should just hire hookers. At least there I won’t have any illusions about their giving a single solitary damn about me – about anything but the money I am paying for their services.”
Tasha patted my hand. “Don’t give up, John. The poets say that for every man, there is a woman. You know how many boyfriends I have?”
“Three, last time I checked. Betting in the shop is 5 to 3 on Richard the lawyer, 4 to 1 on Donald the broker, and 9 to 1 on Emilio, that new doctor at the hospital; with me a 1000 to 1 longshot purely to round out the field. The smart money is on Richard, with the wedding taking place before the end of next year.” The deadpan delivery of this information made her laugh, but my expression didn’t change.
“Well, don’t give up on yourself yet. Your social skills aren’t the greatest even with all the coaching I’ve given you, but you are neither hopeless nor undesirable from a female point of view. The thing is, you need to do a few things.
“First, you have to figure out exactly what you want in a partner – I don’t think you’re after just a roll in the hay, or you’d have asked me if Cleo was working tonight. Second, you have to figure out exactly what you have to offer a woman. Third, you need to determine what sort of woman would find you desirable even with your disability as part of the equation.
“Once you’ve done all this, you have to find a demographic that fits all the criteria. Then you figure out how best to present yourself to the females in that demographic. That‘s how you are going to find a worthy mate, John.”
“I don’t suppose you would consider telling me what you believe that demographic to be?”
“No. If I did, you wouldn’t believe me even though we‘ve never lied to each other. But if you do what I said, you will see the sense of what I‘m telling you; and then you will know where to look and why I suggested you look there. I want you to be happy. You are my best male friend in the entire world, and I love you like a brother. It does not mean another woman can’t see you in the light of a lover and maybe even a husband some day.”
She finished her drink and stood up. She looked down at me and I looked up, over her shoulder but with my angle of vision taking her in perfectly. This discommodes most people and upsets some, but Tasha is used to my ways. I can see clearly much farther to the side without moving my eyes or my head than most people. It’s a side effect of my Asperger’s brought on by my need to be aware of what’s going on around me.
“You’re too good a man to lie moping in the dirt just because some conceited bitch dumped you. Pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and try again. Just back a better horse next time.” She started for the concealed door and I took the hint, following her out. I left my drink behind and walked out to my old Jag. (Hey, just because I drive a van with my tools and supplies in it when I’m on the job doesn’t mean I cannot drive something fancier when I’m not working!)
I drove home, poured myself a glass of Old No. 7 over one cube and sat down in my easy chair to think about what Tasha had said. Over the years she’d taken on the role of big sister to me and she hadn’t steered me wrong yet, either in business or personal matters. If she said I wasn’t a total waste of space in the relationship department, I had to believe her.
My musings were interrupted by the doorbell. I put down my glass and answered the door. Cleo, the Lebanese-American stripper Tasha had mentioned, was standing there in a full-length raincoat, although the weather was nice.
“Mind if I come in?” she asked, brushing past me without waiting for a reply. I closed the door and followed her into the living room.
“What are you doing here?”
She turned around, unbuttoning her coat. She tossed it onto my chair. She was wearing one of the harem girl outfits she uses onstage, a spangled brassiere with a short vest over it and a pair of transparent harem pants held in place by three Velcro tabs. She knelt and took off the curly-tipped slippers that completed the costume and I heard two rips that meant she’d undone the straps that bloused the pants at her ankles and allowed her to easily shed them.
“Tasha told me Debbie dumped you today and took off. She thought you might be feeling lonely. I thought you could use some company.”
She put her arms around me and locked her mouth to mine, her tongue pressing insistently into my lips, demanding entry. She ground into my groin and my cock automatically responded, going from soft and quiescent to rampant and ready in seconds. I pulled her to me, our mouths opening and my tongue touching hers. She grabbed my butt and pulled me to her as I squeezed her ass cheeks.
“Take me upstairs and fuck me, Johnny. I’m hot, and I need your cock! I want to feel you in me! C’mon. let’s go!”
I didn’t say anything, but grabbed her hand and pulled her up the stairs to my bedroom. I didn’t need to read body language to know this horny slut wanted to be fucked like a rag doll.
In the bedroom, she turned to me and started to remove her vest. I put my hands over hers and lifted them away, doing the little chore of stripping her myself, unsnapping the vest and unhooking the brassiere and tossing them aside before I grabbed her around the waist, pulling her in and dropping my head to her boobs. I licked her nipples, moving between then, grabbing them in my teeth and biting. I felt her nails on me as she worked at my waistband, struggling to loosen my belt, undo my pants and shove them down out of the way. I let go of her and stepped out of them as she undid the last strap and expertly swirled her harem pants out of the way before flopping backwards onto the bed, spreading her legs for me and pulling her pussy lips apart.
“C’mon, Johnny. Happiness lies in the middle – in what waits between my thighs. Fuck me!”
Her shaved pussy was wet and inflamed, ready for me to fuck. Not wasting any more time on foreplay, I climbed on top of her and gave her what she so obviously wanted. My cock slid into her and I started to thrust. She sighed happily and began to buck under me as she ran her fingers through my hair, smiling.
“Oh, that’s good! Just what I need and just what you need too, lover! Don’t stop. I don’t have to be back at the club for awhile and I want to enjoy this. Give me that nice, hard cock! Fuck me good, baby! Fuck me good!”
We moved smoothly together in a comfortable rhythm, Cleo moaning under me as I drove her towards orgasm, her nails scratching my back, urging me on. Her eyes were hot with lust, eager to reach her peak and cum under me.
“Don’t stop! Give it to me! I want it! Fuck me, Johnny! Give me your cock! Almost there! Almost! Oh, oh, oh … Y-E-E-S-S-S!”
Cleo’s pussy locked around my rod, clamping down like a hot velvet glove as she came. I stopped for a few moments, savoring the feel of her twat caressing my cock as she went first rigid, then limp as her climax spent itself against me. I began to move in and out of her again with long, full strokes, penetrating deep into her unresisting body. As she came back to this world, she pulled my head to hers, french-kissing me with a rising urgency as her cunt responded to my invading cock.
“You sure know how to give it to a woman,” she whispered between kisses. “I’m soft as butter inside. Give me more of that beautiful prick of yours, baby. Make me cum again! I want to! I love your prick inside me! Don’t stop! I want it! I want it bad! Give it to me!”
Our pace accelerated as she opened her legs wider and dug her heels into the mattress, actively fucking me back as I rammed in and out of her. We screwed like that for awhile, her cunt juice soaking me and running out of her box to drip onto the bed, her gasps and cries spurring me on. Suddenly she pushed me away, scrambling around and presenting herself on all fours, legs apart, sex-slime dripping down her thighs. Hair shaggy and sweat-soaked, she looked back over her shoulder.
“Take me like an animal, stud! I’m burning for your cock! Fuck me doggy-style! Use me good!”
Breathing hard, my eyes glazed by coitus interruptus, I grabbed her by the hips and remounted her, shoving my rampant erection back into her cunt where it belonged and where she so obviously wanted it. She whinnied like a mare in heat and pressed back against me, taking my cock into her, her pussy muscles rippling like fingers as I used her like a whore, giving her deep, rapid thrusts as fast as I could drive my hips. She screamed and pussy juice spurted out around the rock-hard dick filling her, but I didn’t stop. I found her nipples and pulled them roughly. Cleo screamed again and dropped her head and shoulders to the bed as her body betrayed her into another orgasm. I heard her beg.
“Oh yes! Oh yes! Hurt me! Hurt me like that! It’s so good! Don’t stop! Don’t ever stop! Take me! Ravish me! Fuck me!”
I grabbed at her breasts, squeezing them like grapefruit, yanking on them, listening to her plead as I hammered her the way she wanted it. I felt her cum twice more before I couldn’t hold my own climax back any longer. Letting go of her boobs, I took her by the hips and rammed all the way into her.
“Yaaahhh!”
The cum came boiling out of my balls like hornets out of a nest that’s been whacked with a baseball bat. My cock shot deep into her pussy once, twice, three times, four, and a last, weak fifth time. My strength drained by the intensity of my climax, I collapsed on top of Cleo, who was shuddering with the force of her own mind-blowing orgasm. We lay there limp for awhile, marinating in our own sex juices and sweat, and for the moment, satiated. She turned under me so we could put our arms around each other, savoring the afterglow. When our pulse rates were back to normal, she got out of bed and padded into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I heard the shower come on as I dozed off.
A gentle hand on my shoulder woke me. Cleo was dressed again, sitting on the edge of the bed. I reached a hand up to her. She held it against her cheek but made no move to rejoin me.
“Have you … have you ever thought about what it would be like to … you know, go steady with me?” I stammered. She smiled at me, but I couldn’t read what she meant by it.
“Oh, Johnny. You’re sweet, and a helluva good fuck, but we’d never work together over the long run. You’re old enough to be – well, not my father, but anyway my big brother – and you’re established. You have a business and you’re settled; and more to the point, you’re ready to settle down with one woman.
“Me, I’m nowhere near ready to settle down. I still have a lot of wild oats to sow. I’m only 24 and a semester away from my Bachelors. I want to see a lot more of the world and do a lot more wild and crazy things before I commit to something long term.
“You need to find yourself a gal who wants to be with you and only you, I think. You should be looking for her; she’s got to be out there somewhere. But until you find her – ” she stopped to kiss the palm of my hand, “ – any time you feel the urge, give me a call. And now I’m off, glowing like a neon light.” She put my hand down and walked out. A minute later I heard the front door click shut and she was gone.
I lay there for a minute, considering what Cleo had said. Then I climbed out of the bed still redolent with her scent and headed for the shower. The time to start my quest had arrived.
Chapter 2
In my bathrobe with Uncle Jack lubricating my synapses, I took the clipboard that lives next to the business phone that relays from JM’s main number for nights when I’m on call and settled back into my easy chair. I decided to start by setting out the things that would answer questions in the categories Tasha had defined for me.
What was I looking for in a woman?
First off, she would have to be near my own age, call it three years plus or minus. One of the problems Debbie and I had had was a different perception of things, and that had been due to our differing degrees of experience with the world. Not only the degree, but the variety of experience as well. There is truth in the sayings that you learn the most from your mistakes, and that you see things most clearly after falling flat on your face. If my Zen ‘perfect female’ approximated my own age, even if she were from a different social stratum we would still have a number of shared experiences in common on a societal level. The books say shared experiences are an important building block in any relationship.
She’d have to be attractive and have a brain in her head. I may not be some famous celebrity but I do have my pride, and I am a firm believer in Harshaw’s Law. It is all very well to have a pretty woman on one’s arm and in one’s bed. However, if the lights are on but nobody’s home, even a goddess will become tedious in very short order.
Personality counts for much, even in a beauty. Termagants or shrews are instant non-starters, likewise whiners. Partly because of my limited social skills I tend to be a solitary sort and I don’t go to large parties. It’s too easy to offend without intending to, or to commit major faux pas. Therefore, my Zen ideal would have to be something of a homebody outside of business hours, and preferably somewhat submissive in the home. I have been a bachelor for a long time and my outlook will not change overnight. Someone who, when we were en famille, would devote herself to me. A gentle and appreciative sweetheart, in so many words, not a superficial bitch whose looks and manners conceal an icy heart and the soul of a tax collector.
That brought me to sex. I chewed on the pencil for a minute, but decided that if this was to work at all, I owed myself total honesty. Write it straight and blunt.
I didn’t want a nymphomaniac. A clinical nymphomaniac is incapable of attaining sexual satisfaction no matter how many men she beds or how frequent and intense her orgasms may be. What I did want was an experienced partner well versed in the arts of pleasing her lover, one open to anything sexual from plain vanilla to totally kinky, and who would be completely available and willing at all times. By preference, a woman who aroused easily, orgasmed quickly, easily and multiply, and who was vocal during the act. Even after years of training by Tasha and practicing by watching movies, my ability to read body language is, to put it diplomatically, inadequate. I miss facial and subtle body cues even when I am purposely looking for them. Therefore, I rely much more on audible cues than most people. Women who do more than gasp and moan softly during intercourse, the illusions of pornographic movies notwithstanding, are uncommon. The women who appear in movies, even porno flicks, are called actresses for a reason.
I wryly reflected that what I was really looking for was a younger version of Tasha, one who would not regard me as her gently bewildered kid brother or perhaps the reincarnation of Augustus Fink-Nottle from the Wodehouse universe. Ah well, that’s what dreams are for. If you are going to dream, it does not hurt to dream BIG. Continue.
What did I have to offer a would-be partner?
Security, for one thing. I’d been brought home from the hospital to this house. I have lived here all my life and it has long since been paid for. It was part of my inheritance. No mortgage worries. Any partner of mine would not have to fear coming home to find an eviction notice nailed to the front door. So long as I kept the taxes paid, there would always be a roof over my head.
I own my own company, and it turns a profit. Because of my position in the company and the fact that I am in a line of work that cannot be outsourced overseas, I have job security. I have a respectable stock portfolio thanks to Tasha’s advice and occasional hunches of my own (buying Apple stock at its lowest ebb just before it rebounded with the release of the iPod, for instance), and I own pieces of land here and there. I would present to any potential girlfriend a reasonable amount of financial independence, if not outstanding social position. Then again, I wasn’t looking for a female who has had breaking into the Junior League as a lifelong ambition.
In terms of looks, I am not Schwarzenegger in his prime but I don’t have any flab on me, thanks to the personal trainer who stops by two evenings a week and daily use of the home gym in the basement. The thing she would probably notice first was the handlebar mustache, compensation for my slowly receding hairline.
My doctor reports that I am in disgustingly good health for my age, with no serious issues to worry about. Eating the proper foods in reasonable quantities and daily workouts does miracles.
I have no bad habits as most people think of such. No drinking to excess, never any drugs, no gambling problems, nothing like that. My biggest vices are reading, fishing, hunting and target-shooting. I try never to miss opening day of fishing season or deer season, and I do a little varminting for the local farmers. Oh yes; every three or four years I go on a safari, though only once to Africa so far, and never after endangered or at-risk species. If you aren’t going to eat what you shoot and use as much of your kill as possible, you have no business hunting. ‘Sportsmen’ are despicable.
I have never struck a woman in my life or spoken to one with the intent of deliberately inflicting emotional harm. I wondered if that counted for anything, but wrote it down anyway.
On reflection, I wondered if my never having had a long-term relationship counted as an asset or a liability. I added it to the list just to be on the safe side. Let the women in the search group, whatever that was, decide.
This brought me hard up against the next item. What sort of woman fit the first two categories?
I needed to find a woman who might not be looking for a companion in the usual ways. Someone who was loath to deal with the traditional bar scene, or who wanted the safety of not meeting in person before communications established some degree of compatibility. But why would she want to delay such a meeting?
Possibly because she feared rejection. I thought back to the two attempts I had made at speed-dating, egged into it by a client who ran a dating service. I flushed as I recalled the reactions of the ones that had piqued my interest but had not returned it, and of my own negative reaction to a couple of obviously predatory women. Nobody likes to be rejected. I have experienced enough of it from females in the amatory arena that I find it hard to open up and give even a gal I am interested in a chance to get to know me. Perhaps it was the same on the opposite side of the sexual divide.
I had read here and there that many beauties found it hard to date because their looks scared potential suitors off. If such a one was also smart, she might seem so intimidating that only the bravest and most confident men would have the nerve to approach her. Or perhaps such women figured that most men were trophy hunters after only one thing and wanted nothing to do with them, erecting their castle walls so high as to make them impenetrable.
Hmm. What if those walls were there because she saw herself as damaged in some way? Not to keep Lotharios out, but rather to keep her locked away so society and its rules could not hurt her again? What kind of women fit that picture?
I took another sip of my drink as my mind shifted into a higher gear. A woman who looked good and was smart but was damaged goods in the eyes of society. What constitutes ‘damaged goods’ in this day and age? Not divorce; that was long accepted – was almost expected, given the current statistics on marriage failure rates and some social commentators referring to a first marriage as “the trial marriage.” Single motherhood could do it, especially in the lower strata. In strait-laced sections of society, biracialism still missed the socially acceptable cut. Sexual abuse like rape qualified females for this set, because even now there is the tendency of society to say that the victim was really asking for it, that she was really a slut or a cock-tease who led the rapist on, even though anyone with an above room temperature IQ knows that‘s utter horseshit. And except in the very highest circles, possession of a criminal record was worse than the scarlet letter had been in Puritan New England four centuries ago.
Could that have been what Tasha meant? That I needed to look among the females rejected by mainstream America because they had been convicted of something? There are crimes and then there are crimes. Some are more crimes against societal mores than crimes against the common good. Not all criminals are equal. There are lots of cases of people turning their lives around after doing time, although today such a turnaround requires determination, education and more than a little luck. Well, at least it was someplace to start looking.
As with many questions, perhaps I could find my answer online. I finished off the bourbon and went to my computer. Heaven knew there were enough mail order bride sites out there listing women from around the world who wanted to link up with someone. Could it be there was something similar for female convicts?
A quick search told me that indeed there was, and not just one or two websites. I raised my eyebrows and dove in.
Refining my search by specifying American female inmates as part of the search string got the number of sites to investigate down to six. A quick look at them cut that number in half. Three websites was a universe small enough to check manually if necessary. I looked the sites over. Although I fully intended to check all the entries that seemed close to my Zen perfect woman’s specs on all three websites, I expected one of the three might be easier to use than the others.
ladiesbehindthewalls.com seemed to be the easiest of the three to navigate, so I decided to start there. I began with the frequently-asked-questions page.
The site operators were up front about what they did and how it was done. Prison inmates do not have access to computers, so communication with the outside is by snail mail. The site acted as an honest broker. A woman sending her bio, ad listing and photos to the website had to swear that the information was accurate and the pictures were actual pictures of her. Current snapshots with something to prove the date they were taken were preferred, although there were plenty of candids, topless and even professional pics posted with the listings. The site stressed that when a listing arrived, before it was added to the online catalog the operator accessed national or state prisoner registries to verify that the information – date of birth, age, state where incarcerated, date of expected release, physical stats, etc. – was true.
They also checked the provided photos against the record shots in the inmate’s file. If there was some question that the photos really were of the inmate, the ad would be held until the woman satisfied ladiesbehindthewalls.com that the photographs were of her. All photos had to provide the month and year they were taken, to enable lonely men and women cruising the site to extrapolate current appearance based on that date.
If someone attracted you, you could purchase their mailing address for $15 or four addresses for $50. If an address turned out to be unusable, the site would give you three addresses of your choice for free.
ladiesbehindthewalls.com also offered assistance in getting gifts to prisoners. Sending something to someone convicted of a crime isn’t like sending a prisoner of war a Red Cross parcel. American prisons are far more restrictive of what inmates are permitted to receive. However, each listing included information on what kinds of things were acceptable, the procedures for sending them, and when certain things could be mailed. These varied from state to state and institution to institution quite a lot.
The other sites I checked were more or less the same. Prices for the addresses and the amount of information each offered changed but that was the only real difference. I concluded I’d lucked onto the best of the lot first crack out of the box. I closed out the others and returned to ladiesbehindthewalls.com to begin my search for a woman who might accept me.
It would have helped if the site had included a decent search engine. The only sorts that it could do were by ages within a range you set or by distance from your zip code. As distance would not be a consideration until a gal was released, I simply set the age ranges and hit the start button. Fifteen pages with 24 listings per page popped up. I started looking at the hits.
The team that had set up the site had been considerate enough to include a clipboard to which you could transfer the listing of any lady that caught your eye. I took my time studying the photos, trying to see into a woman’s soul from photographs. By the time I’d finished my initial run-through I had twenty-three files on the clipboard. I selected Clipboard, and the twenty-three selected ladies displayed on a single page similar to the main page. I took a deep breath and opened the first file. I spent the next hour examining them, reading what they had to say and looking at the ladies’ pictures. More than a few went into the trashcan.
A couple were dumped because the listings made it plain that they were avaricious predatory types like Debbie. I’d learned my lesson concerning that variety of woman.
Three didn’t make it because of their constant reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not a churchgoer, much less an evangelical. Having met people with that kind of mindset professionally, I felt too many of them were narrow-minded bigots who regarded anyone who didn’t share their worldview and religious creed as half-human at best. That kind of aggravation is easy to live without.
Two more went into the trash because something simply didn’t ring true about what they were saying. I may not be able to read body language very well, but my ability to detect bullshit in written and spoken words is sharper than most. Asperger’s takes away, but it also gives.
Five more were weeded out by Harshaw’s Law because they seemed to have been written by subliterates who had never finished grade school. I’d long since concluded that while bimbos are wonderful to look at and often fun in the sack, you don’t spend your whole life in bed plugged into a female. For a relationship to work there has to be more than attraction based on beauty and sexual skill.
This winnowing left me with five possibles. That’s a reasonable number to check by following the suggestion made on one of the other sites, of subscribing to an online access service that could pull up the record of any currently incarcerated convict in the country.
A quick trip to a new window made me a subscriber. Switching back and forth between screens, I compared what each remaining inmate had said in her listing with the data in her records. Two more ladies were weeded out this way. Now I was down to three. It was decision time. Although all three websites had suggested ordering more than one name at a time, I knew I couldn’t handle more than one woman at a time, at least not in a romantic sense. Which address should I order?
I kept returning to one photo. A professionally shot still, she was looking at the camera in three-quarter front view. The woman was lying on her stomach, shoulders up to show off her cleavage, long legs together, bent at the knee and crossed at the ankle, toes pointed in black stiletto heels, the calves long and shapely, the thighs firm. A bandeau top barely restrained a pair of boobs, definitely and defiantly tits, not titties; and a tiny bikini bottom below her waist showed a nice ass to good advantage. Unusual reddish skin; natural, not makeup, given how little she was wearing in the way of clothing. Long black hair in two braids, secured by rawhide thongs. She had an oval face with an aquiline nose between fashion model cheekbones. One manicured finger brushing her full, slightly parted lips, her expression was wistful; but it was her eyes that called to me. Irises so dark they appeared to have no pupils, they were expressive even to somebody like me. While I can’t interpret body language very well face to face, I do better at reading emotions in photographs. I had never seen a more perfect definition of loneliness trying to disguise itself as allure. I clicked on the picture to open her file.
Her name was Deirdre. She was 39 years old, confined in Texas with a release date next year in late summer or early fall. Her height was given as 5’10”, her weight as 180 pounds, and her measurements as 38-26-34. She was heterosexual, had two adult children, didn’t do drugs but did drink; and was willing to relocate. The thumbnail photo, which expanded to snapshot size on the file page, was two years old. So much for the short form data. I read what she had written about herself.
“A nice girl like me ended up in a place like this. Beautiful enchantress seeks divorced or single male to share an intimate correspondence relationship with the goal of finding a ‘happily ever after’ in each other.
”I’m 39 years of age, a Pisces, with beautiful looks and a beautiful mind. Although I’m 39, people tell me I look ten years younger. I can still turn a few heads. I have silky hair that falls all the way to my waist. I take pride in my captivating smile and sincere eyes. I am open-minded with a great sense of humor. I am incarcerated for getting my second DUI. I don’t do drugs, but I do love my alcohol.
“I’m trying to change my life and I’m tired of being alone. I am looking for a generous man who wants a real woman in his life. Yes, I need a man to help me change my life. I consider myself to be passionate, attractive, sexy and in good physical shape. As you can see from my pictures, I am well endowed.
“I am seeking a kind, passionate man who is not verbally or physically abusive. A man who knows what he wants in life, who is in good physical shape and doesn’t have a lot of emotional baggage or trust issues. The man I’m looking for must be self-supporting. I’ve always worked and look forward to holding a real job again, but I won’t get involved with someone who expects me to support him. I don’t want a player or a bullshit artist. He must be my age or a little older so we’ll have things in common and be able to relate.
“Basically, I’m looking for friendship first. After that, we’ll see what comes. I need someone who is willing to love me unconditionally and be there for me, now and later.
“I like to be spoiled and I’m happy to do the same for my man. Although I have never been married, I dream of finding the right guy someday so I can love and cherish him. I want us to share our lives and our selves in and out of the bedroom, in public and in private.
“If we click, you should be prepared to deal with public displays of affection because I‘m very direct about what I need. There’s a wild, spontaneous, sexual side of me I’m anxious to share with you. I also have a pair of 38Ds that are eager for a man‘s touch. Tell me what you’d do with them if you had them to play with! I know what sensuality is and I revel in it. Do you think you can handle me?
“I have a lot of love to give. My letters will be open and honest. If you are interested in me, please tell me about yourself. Not just the usual things like height, weight and looks. I want to know the things that are important to you. What are you looking for in a friend, a woman and a lover? What do you do for fun? What is your favorite food? Do you like sports? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? What about your family? Anything you’d like to share with me.
“There is nothing left for me in Texas. I ’m open to relocating. I’m very unattached.
“If you would be so kind, please enclose a photo so I can see what you look like (you can send up to ten at a time), but not Polaroids; they aren’t allowed. A book of stamps would speed my reply to you.
“If you are serious about having a lifetime of devotion and love through the good times and the bad, of unconditional acceptance and support, don’t waste any more time. Take a deep breath, put pen to paper or put your fingers on the keyboard and tell me about you. Don’t worry about that first letter; it’s only an icebreaker. We can start there and see what the future holds for us. Hope to hear from you soon.”
Her ad carried an “additional photos” icon, which I clicked. There were five additional pictures. One showed her standing on the porch of a rustic cabin in a pair of daisy dukes and a man’s shirt tied under those spectacular boobs, leaning on the rail with her hair in a ponytail, laughing. The next one showed her nude in a swimming pool, hair floating loose in the water, a nymph out of folklore. Another had obviously been snapped at a party. She was seated at a table, a little drunk, leaning back in her chair with a drink in hand and her dress open almost to the navel, exposing a half-cup brassiere with her tits spilling out of it down to the nipples. In another, obviously a publicity shot, she was done up as a showgirl, high-cut, tight-fitting sequined body suit covering her just enough to avoid a morals charge, with a transparent silk cloak flowing off her shoulders and ruffling in the breeze as she stood hipshot on impossibly high heels wearing a feather and pearl headdress that made her look eight feet tall. The last photo was a nude study, one knee figleafing her as she toyed with a kitten lying on her breasts while reclining on a pile of pillows. Apparently innocent, it was one of the most erotic pictures I had ever seen.
I reluctantly backed out of Deirdre’s listing and went on to my other two finalists.
Lulu was a plush blonde with a body built for sin and according to her listing, a high sex drive that amounted to perpetual horniness. The three pictures she included made it clear she was an honors student in the School of Sexual Pleasure. However, none of the pictures was less than four years old. Rechecking her records raised questions about the disparity between the weight and height she claimed and what the official record stated, and not just a matter of an inch or a few pounds either. Her listing was silent on what she had done to earn her sentence, but the inmate records site told me this was her third trip through the system, and she wouldn’t even be up for parole for another three years on the assault charge that had landed her behind bars. Not a good candidate despite her looks and frank sexuality, even assuming the photos were actually of her and not of someone else.
Maria was a cute little thing, five foot two, petite and well proportioned, with big boobs, bedroom eyes, a stated preference for high heels, leather and spankings, and a come-closer-you-interesting-man look on her face. Only a state away, she said she would be out in less than six months. But on rereading her listing carefully I noticed that she was evasive, providing no information on how many children, if any, she had. I reflected that this lack of honesty might extend to other things as well. Back to the prisoner records website I went in search of further information. Sure enough, there it was. Maria had three kids by three different fathers, all living with their grandmothers. She had been divorced twice. The information on her activities in prison was not reassuring. It was all sports and social activities, with no sign of self-improvement classes, correspondence courses or anything that might help her turn her life around once she got out. Bottom line was that she didn’t seem all that stable and looked to be husband-hunting with an eye toward sitting at home all day and partying all night, preferably without kids in the picture. She lacked the kind of integrity and loyalty I was looking for. Scratch her off the list.
Very well, then; Deirdre it would be. I returned to her page and clicked the Order button, then went to Checkout to complete the transaction.
The checkout page stated that Deirdre’s information had been ordered once before. Did I wish to proceed?
I thought about it. On the other sites, when I had looked at the general catalog pages I had noticed boxes here and there where the thumbnails should have been, with either “Sorry, She’s Taken” or “Removed on [date]” replacing the photo. I didn’t know if ladiesbehindthewalls.com followed the same practice given that I’d gone straight to the search engine, but it seemed likely. I used the mouse to complete the transaction, noting with approval that the site accepted PayPal and used it to send the payment.
The next screen stated the information I had purchased would be sent to me within 48 hours. I was suddenly eager to see what might come of this. Illogical; but as Mr. Spock once observed, sometimes wanting is actually better than having.
I checked my email before I went to work next morning. Nothing. I got the same result when I came home that night, and again in the morning. As I worked that day, I wondered at odd moments if maybe the whole thing was a scam. Back home, I showered and changed, made dinner, cleaned up, and dealt with the monthly bills before I faced my fear and switched on the computer to check my emails again.
There was an email from ladiesbehindthewalls.com in the in-box. There it was: all the information I needed to contact Deirdre. I opened the word processor, thought for a minute and started to write.
“Dear Deirdre:
“I got your name and address through the ladiesbehindthewalls.com website. Your entry intrigued me, as did your pictures, so I am writing to you. It feels as though I already know you a little bit, so I’ll start by telling you something about myself. As you said, the first letter is only an icebreaker. So let’s break some ice.
“My name is John Middleton. I’m 40 years old, a college graduate and a licensed master plumber. I own and operate a small plumbing company a couple of states away, which ought to suit you if you really want to get out of the Lone Star State. JM Plumbing & Heating isn’t the biggest dog on our block, but I’m not a one man show, either. We do both commercial and residential plumbing and HVAC, split about 60/40 at the moment if you count the subcontract from Marion & Pickens LLC for a new estatelet housing project they’re building as commercial.
“Plumbing isn’t a glamour job. It’s not being a lawyer in a three piece suit arguing cases before a judge, nor a doctor saving lives in the emergency room, nor being a stockbroker and making big wads of money by shuffling paper from hither to yon. But it’s honest work and my men and I are good at it. There is one good thing about it: we don’t need to worry about our jobs getting outsourced to India or China or some other place where the capitalists don’t pay the workers a living wage. As a matter of fact, the biggest thing we have to worry about is the home handyman with delusions of adequacy who tackles his own remodeling job. The way that works out, about seven times out of ten we get a frantic call from his wife pleading for us to send someone right away because darling hubby is flooding out the house, so we make more money from the job than we would have if they’d just come to us in the first place!
“As far as hobbies and such go, I like to hunt and fish. I keep a bass boat on a trailer at the shop and during the season I’ll camp out in some remote spot where they’re biting, or at least I hope they are. I’m not one of those trophy addicts but I do enjoy the tussle with a fighting largemouth on light to medium gear, and they taste real good pan-fried in lemon butter with mushrooms. Some of the folks I grew up with own farms, and if they have a varmint problem they call me because I hit what I point at, not their livestock. In return for keeping the varmint population down, they let me hunt over the fields and the borderlands in season. It’s a rare year I don’t manage to take enough game to keep the freezers fully stocked with venison, pheasant, quail and goose; wild turkey, too. If I can’t use what I shoot, I give it (cleaned and dressed, of course) to the local food pantry. Hunting must not be done solely for pleasure, in my opinion. If you aren’t going to eat it or wear it, don’t shoot it, is my motto.
“That tells you a little about me. But you asked what I was looking for in a woman. Let me give you an idea, and then you can decide if you want to initiate a correspondence with me.
“I’m looking for a woman who is willing to devote herself to me, to make our happiness her top priority. I’m not looking for Suzy Homemaker, who deals with the house and entertaining and nothing else. She has to have a brain in her head and not be afraid to use it, and mustn’t be afraid to work outside the home. Like you, I don’t need any players or hustle artists in my life. I want a woman who can pull her own weight.
“She will have to be prepared to put up with a somewhat limited social life because of my personality. I’m something of a solitary sort. You’ll have to get to know me better before we get into that, however. She also must either like the outdoors, learn to like the outdoors, or be willing to be a hunting and fishing widow during the seasons. We could talk about that.
“I’d prefer her to be experienced in the bedroom and open to anything we agree to try. As you said, those are indeed a nice pair of 38Ds and there are many things I can imagine doing with them, but I’m not going to be more specific until I know A) to what extent the institution you’re in censors your mail, B) whether you like explicit mail or not, and C) how explicit you‘d care for me to be. Answer those questions and I’ll respond appropriately.
“In short, I’m looking for someone who can walk side by side with me into the sunset with our fingers intertwined, not two steps behind me with her head lowered at the end of a leash – unless she gets off on that sort of thing. Anything more detailed than that depends on what you say.
“I’m ready to try and make a new start in the personal relationship department. Are you? Meanwhile, knowing that there’s a lag in communications between here and there, I will write a couple of times a week until and unless you tell me to cease and desist. I look forward to your reply.
“John.”
I went back to the beginning and reread it. I added a postscript.
“PS: Enclosed please find a couple of pictures and a book of stamps.”
I went and rummaged in the desk I used for paying the bills and found the book of stamps I keep as backup to the 100 stamp rolls I buy at the post office. It was still sealed. In the right hand drawer I dug out a box of photos and looked through it. They were mostly digital prints taken either at company parties and cookouts or leftover shots from promotional literature I’d had made up for homeowners thinking about remodeling. I selected one that showed me standing by the (then) latest addition to the company fleet and a candid my office manager had snapped of me futzing around at the grille that showed a bit of the formal garden Mother had put in and a corner of the swimming pool. I reasoned Deirdre might like to see the flowers. On reflection, I tossed in one of those record shots they take when you land a big ocean fish and then sell you as a memento of the occasion. I’d spent a week last summer at Boothbay Harbor chasing tuna, billfish and sharks. This tuna had been big enough to pay for the day’s charter after I sold it to a local restaurant. It also was the closest thing to a Charles Atlas-type shot I had, being that I was wearing just a tan, swim trunks and a pair of boat shoes. Deirdre might as well get some idea of the kind of physical shape I was in.