Saved (Minnesota Caribou #5) - Colleen Charles Page 0,4
this so-called prank isn’t funny at all.
Louise Wilson, a quiet woman who went to nursing school with Nana, tugs at her glasses. “Do you think he’s injured or worse? What if this man is trying to send us a call for help?”
“Using his dick as a roadside flare?” Josie flicks her wrist. “Whatever, Louise. Sending pictures of their dicks is all the rage with the hoodlums these days. Apparently, they think it turns women on. They don’t understand we’re not as visual as they are.”
Louise turns the shade of my Nana’s pickled beets. “Quit saying dick, Josie.”
Roxie claps her hands together. “Jiminy Crickets! Would you stop, Josie? Louise is all red like she might stroke out. Remember her blood pressure medication? She can’t handle this kind of gutter talk.”
“Who sent it, Cora Bean?” Nana asks, holding out her phone. “Can you figure it out for me? You know I’m not good with this techno mumbo jumbo.”
Unknown Number. Blocked. I scroll through settings and try all the tricks I know, but I can’t figure out how to unblock the number. And if the pic came from a cell, reverse phone look-up wouldn’t pick it up anyway. I can’t think of any way to figure it out that doesn’t involve a private investigator, so I hand it back to Nana with a shake of my head. My teacher’s salary doesn’t cover anything like that. The dick in question will most likely remain a mystery.
“Sorry, Nana. It’s a blocked number. Whoever sent this didn’t want us to know their identity.”
“Of course, he didn’t,” Josie shrieks. “The only kind of man who does something like this is a pervert or a sex offender. I think we should report it. The police can easily figure out who sent it and throw their nasty butt in the hoosegow.”
Nana twists her wrist again to get the best angle. It’s like she can’t stop looking at it. She doesn’t even have red flaming her cheeks like the rest of us. It’s almost as if… she finds it beautiful. “I think it’s funny, Josie. Think of it as the most excitement most of us old broads have had in years.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ethel Mertens says from the corner. “I gave my John one of those… you knows… just a few weeks ago.”
“What, Ethel? I didn’t hear that last part,” Roxie says, completely ignorant to where this is going.
Since I have the youngest ears in this group, I hear Ethel whisper, “Head.”
“You hit John upside the head?” Louise says, gasping. “Did he hit you back?”
Ethel turns several shades deeper crimson. “That’s not what I said, Louise.”
Nana leans over and taps the dick pic while she stares at the flummoxed woman. “She licked it, Louise.”
Louise’s leg shakes like she’s being stimulated with a cattle prod. “Ethel! You licked the perverted man’s genitals through the phone? What on earth is wrong with you?”
Nana gives an exaggerated eye roll while I stifle a laugh. Part of me wonders what it would be like to… lick it. Not the stranger’s, but Blaine’s. Lately, he’s been wearing those thin sweatpants slung over his hips and when his t-shirt rides up, you can get a good peek at that vee that leads toward… I shake my head. What would it taste like? Feel like? I can’t even imagine.
“John’s!” Nana yells, slamming the phone down. “Follow along, Louise.”
“You licked John’s dick?” Josie’s face twists into a grimace. “Like in the past decade? Must have been his birthday. Ever since Junior was born, you only open those creaky legs on the man’s birthday and Christmas.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Ethel mumbles, taking a sip of her coffee.
Josie rolls her eyes behind her bifocals. “What could be worse than licking a shriveled-up twig and berries? I’d rather lick a public toilet.”
Ethel inhales. “Um… my dentures.”
“You forgot to put in your dentures? Seems to me that would be even better. No accidental biting.”
“No, my dentures fell out. While I was licking it. They fell onto John’s stomach and it made his pacemaker malfunction. Needless to say, we weren’t truthful with his cardiologist when we explained what happened. John told the man it happened when he made a birdie on the golf course and afterward, I told John he needed to ask for something else for his birthday. Then, because he took a Viagra, he walked around with his pants tented like a balloon for hours. What a fiasco!”