F.R.O.G.

"I've been a buyer's agent since I started in the business," Barb said. Her voice was deep and loud and it caromed off all the polished surfaces in the kitchen. "It's why I got into real estate in the first place. Buying our second house was a horrible experience. Our agent and the seller's agent invented fake competing offers to get us to raise our bid. I could never prove anything, but it was obvious what was going on."

She had bright blue-green eyes, slightly small in her broad face but expressive and lively, so it was easy to maintain eye contact as she spoke. And I needed to maintain eye contact now, because if I didn't I knew my gaze would wander and I'd be staring at her chest again, which she'd busted me doing twice already.

"Of course, the higher the sale price, the higher the commission the agents got to split. They knew how much we wanted the house, they even pushed us to drop our contingencies. In the end we just bit the bullet and went along with it. But right then I knew I could do better. With just that one piece of knowledge I knew I could help other buyers navigate this gator-infested swamp."

There was a hint of sales pitch to what she was saying--you typically don't come up with gator-infested swamp on your first go-around--but to her credit Barb had saved it for our second day of showings, and she only brought it up when I was trying to make small talk.

We were standing in the kitchen of the third house of the day, on hold for the time being while Kelly was in the living room nursing Christopher, our ten-month-old. In hindsight, it seems like madness to have brought a baby along on a whirlwind house-hunting tour, especially since we'd driven three hours to get down there and were putting ourselves up in a very basic motel for the weekend. But at the time--this would have been the mid-2000's--we were a brand new family, Chris was the center of our lives, and the idea of leaving him with his grandparents even for one night never entered our heads.

"It hadn't occurred to me to think about that," I said to Barb. "My dad told me, make sure you get a buyer's agent, and I guess I just said, okay."

"Your dad's right. It's the only way you have any representation in the process, putting your interests first. Otherwise you're lambs to the slaughter."

"I can't believe it's a new thing. Buyer's agents, I mean. It's such an obvious conflict of interest otherwise, when you think about it."

"So much, hon. And there was some real pushback in the industry when the idea first started gaining ground. Shows you what their motives are."

She took another cursory look around the kitchen. There was a sour look on her face, possibly from the after-taste of describing the moral shortcomings in the world of real estate; but it could just as easily have been displeasure at the house we currently found ourselves in. How many houses like this had Barb shown in her career?

For Kelly and me, this was the ninth we'd looked at so far, including the six from yesterday, with another three to come today. They'd started to run together for me, and already I couldn't have recalled the specifics of any of them with any certainty. The notes I'd made on the stack of listings had grown progressively less detailed as we shuttled from one to the next. This one was neither here nor there; it could have been any of at least four we'd looked at already.

Barb opened a few drawers and cabinets and poked around in a couple of them, which I'd seen her do at most of the other places we'd toured. At first I thought it was a little presumptuous, even invasive, but it occurred to me that after ten years of showing houses like this, each with their barely distinguishable variations on fashionable themes, it's possible she was simply looking for something, anything, to make one stand out from another. Or perhaps it was just sheer boredom that drove her to do it.

She was wearing the professional uniform of the real-estate agent: cream blouse under a light-blue jacket with matching skirt in a finely spun wool. I don't know fashion, but this woman clearly knew how to dress. The skirt was tailored to her hips and thighs, tapering down to stop just above the knee, emphasizing without advertising. The jacket was cropped at just the right height so it was clear to anyone who might be paying that much attention (I was) that the eye-catching curves above and below were offset by a slender waist in between. The top button of her blouse was low enough to create a vee just above her cleavage, a little showy but still church-modest. Her light skin was a little darker there, and sun-freckled. Her hair was blonde and shoulder-length, with a gentle but irrepressible curl. I guessed it might have been a little redder when she was younger; perhaps her colorist had been taking the easy route in recent years. Barb was in her late fifties, I guessed. Sixty? Sixty-one at most.

"Have you shown this house before?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, many times. This one's fixing to set for a while."

"Any reason for that?"

"We haven't been upstairs yet, but you'll see."

"You make it sound like I shouldn't bother to look."

"You'd save yourself some time, hon, that's for sure."

She walked away down the length of the granite countertop and I watched her go, my attention still snagged by her figure. It was extraordinary. She was much taller than the average woman. I'm a shade under six feet and with eyes horizontal I was looking at the point of her chin. She was proportionately wide, too, with broad shoulders. Head on, even when she was commanding your attention with her blue-green gaze, you couldn't escape the immanence of her breasts, rising and falling in the periphery of your vision, wide, proud and low, silently daring you to look and marvel at them, but promising devastation if you did.

And the rear view--there's no other way to put this--was all ass; gigantic, mesmerizing ass. The impression she gave then, and what sums her up when I think of her now, is of the figurehead you see on old wooden sailing ships: the carved head and torso mounted on the prow of a large and important vessel. Austere, buxom, commanding, and fearless up top, while the lower half merged seamlessly into the hull of the ship, low and wide, the business end of the enterprise. Broad enough to tame deep oceans, full of precious cargo, tended and steered to exotic destinations by an anxious and respectful crew. That big, that important. Unignorable; that was Barb's ass.

A woman of such stature was wasted in a setting like this. I wouldn't have been surprised to see Barb making fiery closing arguments as a trial attorney, or negotiating disarmament treaties with heads of state. Feminine, charming, but not classically beautiful, and all the more interesting for it; very sexy, and more than capable of crushing your nuts and making you thank her for it afterwards.

But in real life Barb was a real estate agent in a southern suburban town, late to her career having raised a family first, making the best of her talents and sensibility in the time remaining to her. And here she was out in the arena, throwing elbows with all the chiselers and johnnies-come-lately whose professional interests extended as far as fat profits and the short cut to Easy Street. To our good fortune--Kelly's and mine--Barb had chosen the good guys' side and was willing to hand-hold a young family while they decided in which of these indistinguishable cardboard-and-plastic houses they'd start their family life. It wasn't lost on me that for a price bracket two or three times what we were in the market for, the legwork for the agent is approximately the same. Barb didn't have to slum it with the first-time buyers, and I'm sure she knew she could aim higher, yet here she was. For that she had my respect.

At the far end of the counter she'd turned on her heel and was now, I eventually realized, watching me look at her. Again. When I made it up to her eyes I could see amusement there and perhaps a little exasperation. God only knows what slack-mouthed face I was wearing at that moment. She shifted her broad jaw to one side and raised her eyebrows, the way a teacher might silently call out a misbehaving student without disrupting the entire class.

"This is strike three, Mr. Puck," she might have said, "whatever you think you're doing, you can stop right now."

And maybe she would have gone ahead and said it but she didn't get the chance, because at that moment I heard movement behind me and turned to see Kelly enter the kitchen with Chris in her arms. There was a knot of worry between her eyebrows.

"Something wrong?" I said, immediately starting toward them.

"Chris has a fever. He's fussing and didn't want to nurse."

"Aw, my little guy," I said and leaned in to kiss his forehead. "Man, you're not kidding. He's burning up."

"I think I should take him back to the motel. He probably needs a good long nap anyway, and the Tylenol's there."

Barb had come over to us, her face full of concern. "Too much for him, huh? Poor thing. All this stop and go. Is he teething by now?"

Kelly nodded. "I think that's part of it."

"Look, you kids go and get him settled and we can rearrange the rest of the showings."

"Oh," Kelly said, "no need to cancel the rest. Freddie can go see the last three for today. I think I've got a feel for what's on the market."

I knew what Kelly was thinking. We'd only booked two nights at our motel and we needed to head north tomorrow, for me to get back to work and save the few vacation days I had left, and also because we hadn't the budget to extend the trip any longer.

Barb looked from Kelly to me, her palms up, neutral to the decision we made.

"Take the camera," Kelly said. "A few shots of each is all I'll need to see. We're on the same page, anyway." She turned sideways so the baby-backpack was within reach. "It's in the big compartment under the diapers."

I rummaged and found the bulky camera down below the diapers, tubes of ointment, a change of clothes, and a pack of fresh pacifiers. "Um, I guess I'll need a ride back to the motel when we're done, if that's okay." I looked at Barb.

"Not a problem," she said. "I think you're on my way back to the office. Just off I-40, right?"

"Right."

"So we're good."

I helped Kelly get Christopher settled in the car-seat and kissed them both. As Kelly put on her seatbelt I leaned down to the open window. "I'll not spend long at these places. They're all much the same."

"Don't rush. If you see something you like take plenty of pictures so you can describe it to me later."

"I will. These last few are on the high side, anyway." I was referring to price, of course.

She reached out the window and took my hand. "But my Freddie just landed a great new job down here. We can swing it." She gave my hand a squeeze and flashed me her diamond smile, which I always found her most compelling. "Don't sell yourself short."

I gave her the Freddie Puck gnash--the killer out hunting for his prey--and tapped the roof of the car before stepping back and waving to Christopher through the back window. I don't think he was looking.

Barb was coming down the driveway as I walked up behind her car. She was still wearing the frown of concern, probably because it was the polite thing to do; when I smiled at her I saw she relaxed immediately.

"All well?" she said, popping the button on the key fob to unlock the car.

"I'm sure he'll be fine. Just a little hectic for him the last few days."

"Jump in. Oh, wait," she said, holding up her hands. "I forgot to show you the upstairs, didn't I?"

I waved it away. "Don't worry. I think Chris already decided this one for us."

I sat down on the leather passenger seat of a recent-model Audi A6. The contrast was so stark I almost laughed. For a day and a half now, Kelly and Chris and I had rattled along behind Barb in our seven-year-old Toyota Corolla, barely keeping up with the muscular Audi taking subdivision corners like it was a European Grand Prix.

Barb eased in behind the wheel and I realized how eagerly I'd been anticipating being in close proximity to her.

"Nice car," I said, which was true, but it also gave me an excuse to look around the interior appreciatively, a nice cover for watching Barb scooch her ass into the driver's seat without being too obvious about it.

And, blessed as I was that day, it also turned out the Audi was a manual transmission.

This will need some explanation, so for now just picture Barb easing herself into the bucket seat, reaching for the ignition slot with the key, stretching the seatbelt across her bosom, and so on.

In middle school I ran track, eighth grade season. My growth spurt the prior year had catapulted me from a perennial non-competitor to a gangly distance runner with a directionless surfeit of energy that somehow manifested in an ability to take the middle distances at a near sprint. Hands down I was the school's fastest in the 1500 meters, and was uncontested by virtually all-comers from the other schools in my district. (The distinction didn't last, as it happened; I 'filled out' in high school and resumed my role as a pedestrian.) But that's not why I bring it up.

One day we had a track meet at a school about ten miles away. Sports events meant an early out from class for all participants, and typically the school buses were on hand to shuttle us athletes to the hosting school, but this day an early dismissal had been called--another fire-alarm pulled, perhaps another sewage back-up--resulting in all buses hitting their regular routes an hour earlier than usual, which meant none were available for the sports teams.

There was a scramble to procure transportation for the athletes, consisting of the entire staff of gym teachers--plus some other faculty filled with team spirit, or the prospect of overtime--being pressed into service with their own vehicles. I remember nothing about the track meet that day, nor the bus ride home later when normalcy had been restored, but I have never forgotten riding shotgun with Mrs. McKeldron in her Honda Accord.

Mrs. McKeldron was in her thirties, I would guess (but who knows; I was thirteen and a poor judge of age outside the range of, say, twelve to fifteen), and when she pulled up to collect three track-and-fielders that day she'd just come from teaching a lacrosse lesson with the girls of my class. She stopped the car where I stood at the curb as if she'd aimed to line up the passenger door right in front of me. There was no question I'd be riding up front.

She was wearing a short and stretchy wrap-around lacrosse skirt and a light cotton T-shirt with the school emblem (a non-threatening bear) between her breasts, partly obscured by the black strap of her seatbelt. It was impossible not to be transfixed by her legs, toned and tan. Her thigh and calf muscles were pronounced as she held in the clutch and brake pedals. Her right hand was wrapped around the stem of the gear shift and her thumb absently rubbed the indentations on the knob indicating the paths to the various gear positions. (The pad of her thumb must have been picking up the faintest of tactile sensations while traversing those tiny grooves, and her brain must have signaled to her that it was agreeable. This didn't occur to me until later, of course, when I recalled and embellished the details of the ride, for personal use.)

Once in motion, I was conscious only of Mrs. McKeldron next to me and the sex-heavy stimuli she was throwing off like a pinwheel firework: the sexual aura of an attractive, active female body in close proximity, the mutual awareness of bareness of skin, the piston-action of legs moving reciprocally--see what my body can do?--at the apex of which was a warm pussy, its folds already lubricated with the sweat of the playing field, its natural sex fragrance billowing into the close air of the car with each gear-change and brake-depression.

She knew exactly the effect she was having on me, and she knew how helpless I was, being a pasty sack of raging hormones. Female gym teachers in their short, short skirts love to drive teenage boys crazy.

The lasting impression from that day was of the sexual power conveyed by a woman driving. Every man senses in a woman the potential for damage, for bodily and psychological harm, and yet somehow gravitates towards that threat regardless of common sense and the principle of self-preservation. A woman driving is a banal, everyday reminder that she can end you, literally, if necessary, by brick wall or light-pole or bridge abutment, and her greatest trick is that she can make you welcome it. (But maybe that's just me.)

In any case, I was a grinning fool in the passenger seat, oblivious to the two clowns in back (to this day I can't recall a single thing about them), attempting to figure the odds of fucking Mrs. McKeldron in the parking lot of the host school while everyone was down at the track. Should I let my left hand accidentally fall on her right thigh? Would that work? Should I just show her my erection and beg her to take pity on a poor horny schoolboy?

Nothing happened, of course, but in light of that formative experience there was an understandable primal echo when I watched Barb fire up the A6 and make those independent leg movements--clutch in, shift, clutch out, brake release, gas pedal--especially when those legs, those thighs, those polyhedral calves were flexing in natural response to her purposeful intent. I don't know, maybe it's the urge to tame the wild animal that draws me in. Maybe it's the implied female challenge--are you up to this?--that stokes the coals.

Barb's thighs working under that blue skirt (there was the hem of a silky slip showing now, something you don't see much of anymore, sadly), pumping away to bring the growling Audi up to speed, gearing down for traffic lights... All of this began to give me the purple patches of vision-loss I know well from escalating desire. The dangerous zone where you might lose your grasp on higher thought and start giving in to animal instinct.

"Poor little Christopher," Barb said now, jerking me back to reality. "Does he get sick a lot?"

"Um, actually no. He's a tough little guy on the whole. I think it must be the change in routine. The pace of the trip is more than he's used to, I guess."

"So much happens in the first year. It feels like you're just hanging on sometimes, doesn't it?"

"Oh my God, yes. It's like we hit the speed limit and just kept accelerating. I never thought I'd be changing jobs and moving out of state within a year of him coming along. I sometimes wonder if we've gone crazy."

"You're following your instincts. It's a good thing. Your gut is rarely wrong, and your kids are the most important thing in your life. Until they don't need you anymore," she added, and glanced over at me. "Then you get your life back."

She laughed to make sure I understood she was trying to lighten the mood. I was grateful for that, and smiled, and watched her legs some more.

I said, "Are your kids close by?"

"My daughter's down in Charlotte, not too far. My son--he's the oldest--went to graduate school out in California and never left. He's a little older than you, I would guess, has a seven-year-old girl."

"You visit much?"

"When we can. His wife's not my favorite person in the world, I hate to say it. I guess that's the mother-in-law's curse. No one's good enough for your best boy."

She used the palm of her hand to push the stick forward as she down-shifted for a curve. "But I remember the world getting turned upside down the year Marty was born. We didn't know what hit us, and that was after nine months of preparing for every possible outcome. Best laid plans. You just learn to roll with it, I guess."

"No kidding. I thought we'd be set for a while, no big changes until Chris was two at least. Then all of a sudden he shows up and it's like we know nothing, we own nothing, we're not ready, I need to make more money, and on and on. And here we are. Crazy."