Laid Bare: Essays and Observations by Judson, Tom (read 50 shades of grey .TXT) 📕

I saw these weren’t just houses; these were mansions. Brand new, immaculately finished behemoths that sat close enough to one another to expose the underlying plans for each house as identical. Only the exterior details provided enough distinction to keep the occupants from entering the wrong domicile on a foggy evening. There were spindly young trees with twin upright supports planted here and there in the yards. Seams still showed between the strips of new sod.

I turned into the arcing blacktopped driveway and pulled up to the front door under the twin-columned portico. My two-door vintage convertible suddenly felt Lilliputian in front of this monumental edifice. I turned off the ignition, got out and walked around the front of the car and up the two broad front steps. Within moments of ringing the bell, one half of the wide, double door silently swung open.

There stood my date. He wore brown loafers, khaki pants and a pink button-down collar shirt as well as a very obvious blond toupee. That’ll be a challenge I thought, as I planned my strategy of never touching his head. But it was his skin that made the strongest impression. It was translucent as alabaster. I couldn’t quite call him an albino, but his white skin and blue eyes, pale as dead hydrangea, gave him an eerie, ethereal quality that reminded me of the evil children in the movie Village of the Damned. I tried desperately to remember how that film ended as I reached out my hand and introduced myself.

“Hi, Scott. I’m Gus.”

“You found it okay, I see.”

I looked at the floor to keep my gaze from drifting upward to his hair and saw a shadow flicker behind the door. Scott must have noticed my glance.

“Oh. This is my brother, Mark.”

From behind the other half of the front door stepped a carbon copy of my client. Everything was identical except that he wore a blue Oxford cloth shirt, not the same pink as his brother.

“I… guess you guys are twins,” I offered with a chuckle to cover my surprise, as I confirmed with a quick look that even the toupees were the same. “Nice to meet you, Mark. Are you joining us for dinner?”

I’ve always had a fantasy of having sex with twin brothers, but, now that the pieces were falling into place for that possibility, I was having doubts that this was the pair. It was going to be a job keeping interest in just one of these guys; two would tax my abilities beyond endurance.

“No, I’m staying in tonight,” answered Mark as he took a handkerchief from his pocket and sneezed into it.

“Well, Scott, should we get going,” I asked as Mark hovered in the vestibule.

“I thought I’d show you around the house before we go, if that’s okay.”

Scott and Mark then proceeded to give me a guided tour of their house. There was a billiard room downstairs complete with a double green glass-shaded lamp hanging above the felt surface of the table and cues lined up perfectly in their holder on the wall.

“Do you guys play?”

They answered “no” in unison.

There was a music room upstairs. The ivory-colored Wurlitzer sat peacefully in a corner, snug on the white carpet. I noticed there were no indentations in the broadloom where the feet of the bench would have rested were a player sitting on it. There was also no piano music to be seen anywhere.

“Do you guys play?”

They looked at one another and then at me.

“No,” answered Scott. “No, neither of us play,” echoed Mark.

My eye traveled to a marble chess set atop a reproduction Chippendale mahogany game table placed artfully in front of the picture window. Two identical kings stared at each other across the board. The chairs were set at an inviting angle, as if to say, “Come, spend an afternoon contemplating the intrigues of this ancient game.”

“Do you guys…” I looked in Scott’s eyes and, seeing nothing, continued, “…want to show me the upstairs?”

Returning from dinner the windshield wipers of the sedan maintained a steady thup-thup… thup-thup. We pulled into the driveway of the house and around to the side, where I had re-parked my car at Scott’s request before leaving for the restaurant.

During dinner the talk had flowed effortlessly. The double martini had inspired me and the conversational ball never dropped. Perhaps I was trying to postpone the inevitable by keeping up an endless banter. The pale blond man across the table looked directly at me for most of the meal, and never seemed to blink. Scott was perfectly pleasant, but I was not looking forward to climbing into bed with him. As the tires of the car hummed along the damp pavement my hand felt for the comforting outline of the diamond-shaped blue pill in my pocket.

The automatic garage door closed behind us. After stepping out of the car onto the immaculate cement floor we met in front of the three-pronged medallion on the hood and stood facing each other. I smiled uncomfortably as Scott leaned toward me and placed a tentative kiss on my closed mouth. As he pulled away I felt the cool snap of wetness where his lips had left a trace of saliva.

The dishwasher was running as we entered the house through the dark kitchen. The flickering blue light of a television and the soft murmur of a laugh track emanated from the “media room” across the hall. Scott took my hand and led me in that direction. His palm felt moist and his grasp timid. We stopped in the doorway and Mark looked up from his program. Holding up an index finger he drew in several quick short breaths and then sneezed into his handkerchief.

“Sorry.