Miss K and I were sitting in Hana during one of our weekly dinners, talking about work.
"So there's this guy I saw once, a long time ago, who's still calling me. I mean, I saw him when you still had your old dungeon, off Dexter Avenue," she began.
"God, that was five years ago. You saw him once and he still calls you?"
"Yeah, and I didn't like him, so I don't want to see him again. And I've got his number programmed into the phone so I usually know not to answer. But this one time a couple of days ago I didn't look at the caller ID before I picked up, and of course, it was him."
"Fuck, don't you hate that?"
"Yeah, and it's like – how do you say 'no' and get off the phone gracefully?"
"What'd you do?" I asked.
"Well, he hardly lets you get a word in edgewise - he was going on and on about wanting to see me again. He has this panty fetish, and I don't mean sexy panties, I mean he has a thing for granny panties." She made a face. "Really ugly big white polyester granny panties."
"Let me guess – he brought you some to the session you had with him and asked you to wear them?"
"Yep. And I did. If you're paying me, and you like ugly panties, hey, I'll put 'em on for you. Whatever floats your boat." She took a sip of her water. "Within reason, that is. If they want really weird shit, I send them to you." She grinned.
"Oh, thank you ever so much, dear," I said. "But I can do without any guy who's still calling the same escort for five years even though she never calls him back. That's a little freaky."
"You're telling me. So I said to him, 'You know, honey, you should call someone else, because I really don't think we're very compatible'."
"How'd he take that?"
"Oh, he started trying to persuade me to change my mind. He said, 'No, no, you don't understand, I've been dreaming of you all this time'."
"All this time? What is he, Rip Van Winkle?"
"Oh, wait, it gets better," she said. "Then he tells me how he wants to see me so much, that I was a goddess, that our session together was the best one he ever had, etc. And he wanted to know if I still had the panties that he gave me in our session together."
I laughed. "He wanted to know if you'd saved his granny panties for five years? Well, I'm guessing they'd be in perfect shape because you never, ever wore them again."
"Yeah, except I think I used them to wipe bird shit off my car right after I saw him. So I explained to him that no, I didn't have his panties - and he asked me 'Why not? Did you gain weight or something?'"
"Smooth talker, huh?"
She snorted. "Yeah. I said, no, I hadn't, that I was still the same size as the last time he saw me, and I was going on to say that I didn't save them because I didn't want to do another session with him, but he interrupted me and said, "Tell me what you look like again?'"
I started to laugh. "Wait, wait, wait – you're saying this guy told you that you were a goddess, and that he's been dreaming of you for five years, and then asked you what you looked like?"
She pressed her tongue deeply into her cheek and nodded, eyes closed in disbelief.
I laughed harder. "What did you say?" I asked, when I caught my breath.
"What'd you think? I said, 'What, you've been dreaming about me for five years but you don't remember what I look like?'"
"To which he replied…?"
"He said, "I remember that you're tall."
I laughed again. "Oh, that's special."
"Yeah. But it was fine, because it made me feel much less sorry for him when I told I never wanted to see him again."
"Boorishness does make it easier to be clear, doesn't it?"