Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 2) (2 page)

“I don’t know about all this spiritual hoo-ha,” Rob said, relinquishing his hold on Josie. “I just want to understand what’s going on with its wolf population. Now, I don’t mean to kick you ladies out, but I’ve got to get back to work now.”

“Fair enough,” Josie said. “One of us has got to earn the money around here.” She stretched up on tiptoes for a kiss from Rob.

“I’ll give you a ride back into town?” Isabel asked.

“That would be great!” she replied.

As usual, Isabel opened the windows as she drove.

“Doesn’t the air get too much for you out here?” Josie asked, laughing.

“Sorry.” Isabel slid the windows closed again. “I guess it’s still a novelty for me. I never felt like the climate in Chicago suited me.”

“I like the heat. Most of the time anyway.” Josie said. “Just sometimes when I step outside around noon, I feel like I’ve just walked into an oven!”

“And how long have you been here?”

“Two years! When I moved here, I wasn’t sure if I could cope with the heat, but living in Silver City had been my dream, like, forever, so when a job opening came up for Rob in Gila, we jumped at the chance. We were so glad to find somewhere to live where I could have my artist community, and Rob could find his dream job in conservation. And it turns out it’s more the dryness than the heat that gets to me!”

“I hear you!” Isabel said. “Who would’ve imagined a desert town would be so arid!” They both giggled.

“And how about you? You’ve been here for about a month, right?” Josie asked. “Was it a seat-of-the-pants decision to come down here?”

“No, I’ve always been a secret hippy, and I knew of Silver City as this really bohemian place. Jason never would’ve moved to a small town – or, actually, away from Chicago at all – so breaking up with him gave me the opportunity to come and see if I could be happy here. I know it might seem like I was running away from something, but it really wasn’t like that.”

“So, why did you guys break up?” Josie asked. Isabel was quiet for a moment. During and after the breakup, it had taken her a long time to clear up in her own head exactly why she and Jason had stopped working, and it always sounded clichéd when she tried to explain it to someone else. She also realised with a pang that she had barely thought about him for the past few days – definitely the longest time since they’d first met.

“We just grew apart,” she said. “You change so much when you go through college, and through your twenties. He’s a really good person, really dependable, and all my family and friends loved him.”

“But he didn’t excite you anymore?” Josie cut in. Isabel glanced at her and caught a wicked look in her eye. She suddenly wanted to shock her.

“That, and the fact that he didn’t like going down on me!” she said, deadpan. Josie let out a gale of dirty laughter.

“Really?” she said. “God, I couldn’t live without it!” Isabel looked across at her more openly. She was lolling in the passenger seat. She’d slipped her shoes off and her arms were wrapped around her bent left knee, her small foot hooked over the edge of the seat. She was wearing a red cotton dress, carelessly, somehow, and her dark hair was tangled. There was something voracious about her, like a raw sexual energy. Isabel fell quiet again, wondering what she’d been missing out on all those years with Jason and his vigorous, yet limited sexual appetites.

“Hey,” she said, at last, making up her mind to ask Josie the question that had been burning in her mind for the past day. “What would you think if someone went on a date with someone who went down on them, but nothing else happened?”

“I’d ask if the someones were lesbians,” Josie answered with a throaty chuckle, not missing a beat.

“Oh – ” Isabel’s cheeks warmed. “I guess I meant a hetero couple.”

“Well, I could ask if the guy was actually a lesbian impersonating a man, but you’d probably slap me. Seriously? I don’t know? That’s happened to me before – I think?” Josie said slowly. Isabel imagined she was mentally running through a catalogue of her previous lovers, and fought a twinge of jealousy.

They had arrived downtown, and Silver City was virtually deserted, deep in its afternoon siesta.

“I can run you home if you like?” Isabel asked.

“No, I’m good, thanks – I’ve got a couple of things to do here,” Josie said, getting out of the car. She leaned in through the open door. “So, these someones are hypothetical, right?”

Isabel nodded, a little shamefacedly. “Well, I’ll look forward to a hypothetical update then!” Josie winked. “Thanks for the ride.” She blew Isabel a kiss, and walked away in the direction of the main street.

She’s like a comet
, Isabel thought, watching the figure in the red dress growing smaller and smaller. A force of nature. There was something wistful in the sleepy afternoon, in the small town’s dusty streets, and the thought of possibilities that could slip away too easily.

*

Isabel took her phone out of her handbag when she arrived back home. She hadn’t checked it for hours, engrossed by Rob and Josie’s company. There was a message from Peter, sent two hours previously:

Are you free tonight, Bella? Come to my house

it said. Isabel bounded into her bedroom, leapt onto her bed and jumped up and down. The Wolf liked her! He wanted to see her again! Butterflies went crazy in her stomach. She flipped herself backwards, landing on her back in the middle of her comforter. The room was spinning a little as she lay staring at the ceiling. The desire she’d been repressing returned. She allowed herself to think about him, about his body, the fierceness of his kiss, the skillfulness of his hands. She picked up her phone, which had slipped out of her grasp, flipped onto her stomach and started to reply to him, saying, yes, she was free, and she’d come to his house. But then she stopped. She was tired from the day and the poor night’s sleep, and the thought of driving back to Black Peak City wasn’t appealing. It was his turn to make the journey this time. Still, she had a suspicion that Peter would be resistant to coming to her place, and she didn’t want to miss out on seeing him.

“Ok, this can be the decider,” she said aloud. Her favorite dilemmas were the ones that could be resolved by taking them outside of her control. She typed into her phone:

Yes, but can you come to my place instead? I’ve just had an exhausting day, and I need to conserve my energies ;)

She hit send before she had a chance to delete the message. Despite being on the dating site and despite the brazen way she’d turned up at Peter’s house a couple of days before, a natural modesty would normally have prevented her from being so suggestive. She smirked, aware that the conversation she’d had with Josie was doing its work on her.

Confirmation that Peter liked her quenched the anxieties that had been plaguing her for the past day. As often happened in similar situations, with the fear of rejection gone, the sense of urgency disappeared too. If Peter wouldn’t come to her place, so be it; they could meet another time. Very relaxed now, Isabel drifted to the bathroom to run a bath. While the tub was filling up, she looked through the downloads on her laptop for a film she could watch if he refused to come and see her.

Peter didn’t keep her waiting long though. Within ten minutes, he messaged her back saying he’d come, or to be exact:

I will come at 8. Please send address.

Isabel whooped in delight. She sent her address through, and headed to the bathroom to prepare herself.

Lying in the tub, she soaped up her underarms and legs and shaved them, careful to avoid any cuts or nicks. But when she came to her pubic hair, she stopped. Tiny, dark hairs were beginning to grow back since her last shave three days ago. This time, instead of clean-shaving the entire area as she usually did, she placed a finger over her Mount of Venus, stopping just at the beginning of her labia, and shaved around it. When she’d finished, she looked down at her handiwork. The faint strip actually looked pretty sexy, as if it was marking out a pathway. She ran her fingers over it, liking the feeling of having a little hair there.

After the bath, Isabel ate dinner in her bathrobe, then went to her room to pick out some lingerie and a dress. She sifted through her underwear drawer, rejecting several options before choosing a cherry-red lace bra and matching panties. She combined them with a black silky slip of a dress with thin shoulder straps. As an afterthought, she slipped some black stockings on too, fastening the garter belt around her waist and threading the hooks underneath her panties before attaching them to the tops of the stockings. She stood up, liking the sense of constraint they gave her. She’d only worn stockings a couple of times before, but they always felt dirty, in some undefinable way that she enjoyed a lot. Her make-up was light, as it seemed silly to be too done up when she was at home, but she put heels on to make her outfit complete.

Time passed quickly as Isabel tidied her house, making it look as presentable as possible for Peter. She opened a bottle of sparkling Californian wine and as she took a gulp to steady her nerves, he was knocking on her door.

Slightly giddily, as if the small amount of wine she’d drunk had gone straight to her head, she ran to the door and threw it open. The Wolf was standing there, his frame filling the doorway. He was wearing a black button-down shirt, revealing a triangle of olive-skinned chest, and black jeans. The hungry, almost hostile look she’d seen in the Silver Dime Saloon was in his eyes once more. Hairs prickled on the back of her neck and along her arms, with the confusing mixture of desire and trepidation that he elicited from her.

He stepped towards her and Isabel held herself still, wondering if he was going to sniff her. He didn’t disappoint, beginning at the hollow at the base of her neck and moving up and around to the nape of her neck, before finishing just behind her left ear. Unconsciously, she held her breath until he’d finished.

“I can smell the woods on you again,” he said.

“Wow… I was there earlier today actually,” Isabel said. “I had a bath afterwards though, quite a long one.” Her hand moved to her hair. “Do I have some pine needles in my hair, or something?”

“I can’t smell a man on you this time,” he said, instead of answering her question.

“Good,” Isabel said, hesitantly. Peter leaned towards her and kissed her on the mouth, a quick, full-lipped kiss, with a flicker of tongue that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, awakening nerve endings all over her body.

“Let’s go inside,” she said, and stepped to the side to let him pass. She closed the door and skipped ahead to show him through to the house. Deciding it would be inappropriate to take him straight to the bedroom, she led him into her living room instead. “Take a seat,” she said, and went to the kitchen to pour a glass of wine for him.

When she returned, he hadn’t sat down. Instead, he was prowling around the room, looking at her things. She’d done the same thing at his place, she reminded herself, but there was something deliberate about the way he was moving, as if he was trying to assess the space, measure out its boundaries. Isabel sat on her sofa and watched him. His edginess was making her nervous, and she was reminded yet again what an unusual person he was. She forced herself to relax and enjoy the sight of his physique, muscles twitching and straining beneath his clothing. Now it was her turn to stare – except that he wasn’t walking around naked.

“That’s one of my pieces,” Isabel said, as Peter looked at a sculpture on a side table. It was one of the final projects from her degree and she was justifiably proud of it. It was a bronze cast of a Medusa figure, nude and on her knees, with the snakes on her head wrapping themselves around her body.

“Nice, very natural,” Peter said. “I didn’t know you made art.”

“I guess we haven’t spoken about much at all,” Isabel said, with a laugh. “I’m actually a full-time artist.” He turned to her.

“That’s amazing. I didn’t know people could live as artists.” His tone was unguarded and his face had taken on a beguiling openness.

“Oh, it’s not impossible, but sometimes you have to compromise your principles.”

“You should never do that. You have real talent,” he said.

“Thanks,” Isabel stuttered. She wasn’t used to guys being as serious as Peter and it threw her off kilter. “So, what do you do for work?” she asked lightly. Immediately, his face transformed, and the hard, hungry look returned.

“It’s not important,” he said, in a rough voice. Isabel stared at him. It was like a door slamming shut on a promising morning. She continued to stare at him until her shock had subsided, and her reactions had begun to gather themselves in her brain and form themselves into words. Slowly, she pulled herself to the edge of her seat.

“Look, I know this is some kind of game that we’re playing – only, I wish I had a better idea of what the rules are,” she said. “And for you it might not be ‘important’ who we are as people, but it actually really matters to me!”

Just as swiftly, Peter’s expression changed again, and he looked almost – wounded – Isabel thought, with a small, sharp shock.

“But you asked me what my job was,” he said. “And most people’s jobs don’t define them. What if I told you I was a door-to-door salesman, for example?” Isabel burst into laughter. The idea of Peter knocking on doors, trying to persuade people to buy something was hilarious. “You see, there’s something ridiculous about that, isn’t there?” Isabel nodded minutely, and the corner of Peter’s lip curled, not quite into a smile.

“The truth is that I don’t work at all. Not in the conventional sense, anyway. But, in American society, to say you don’t have a job suggests you’re of a low social status.”

“But – ” A hundred questions hung on Isabel’s lips, but the cool amber of his eyes prevented any of them from being released. She sensed Peter was pleased by her silence, the tightness in his body easing. In a swift movement, he crossed the room and sat on her armchair.

“Come and sit here,” he said, patting his thigh. Wordlessly, Isabel stood up and walked over to him. Backing awkwardly onto his lap, she placed her arm around his shoulders. She felt tiny sitting there, a breakable doll. The spicy, masculine smell of his body, familiar from last time, was strong, and the unwavering gaze of his eyes was almost hypnotic. He cupped her jaw with his huge hand and kissed her. The press of his lips was firm, and she resisted, then yielded to the invasion of his long, flickering tongue. She shivered, arousal mingled with uncertainty at sitting on this unsettling creature’s lap, feeling like he could devour her at any moment. The Wolf’s hand moved to her thigh, to the place where her dress had ridden up and a sliver of bare flesh at the tops of her stockings was exposed. He murmured a sound of appreciation into her mouth. His fingers stroked her skin, along the top of the stocking, pausing and plucking at her garter, as if he hadn’t come across one before. Isabel began to enjoy her vulnerability and his gentleness, willing him to move his fingers higher and higher. His fingertips traced circles across each thigh, and then up, along the edges of her panties. He hovered over her panties, and then, seeming to change his mind, he grasped the hem of her dress with both hands and lifted it, pulling it up to her waist and then all the way up, over her head. Depositing it beside him on the chair, his eyes flickered over her body, taking in her meticulously-chosen lingerie.