Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 2) (5 page)

“It might be a little cold,” he said.

“That’s ok,” Isabel replied. She put her hand in the waterfall. It was indeed cold. She let it fill her cupped hands and splashed her chest with it, wishing she wasn’t wearing make-up so she could wash her face too.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” he said. “You can stand in the stream if you want, the stones aren’t slippery.”

“Thanks,” she said, and he turned and walked away. Isabel listened, but she couldn’t tell whether he’d walked all the way back to their camp, or was waiting for her just beyond the rock. Cautiously she stepped into the stream. The coldness made her gasp, but quickly it became bearable. The water came up just past her knees, and it was silky soft and refreshing. Peter was right, the stones were firm under her feet and the current was moving so gently she could barely feel it. She counted to three and ducked down into the water. She let out a small scream as it reached her neck, but forced herself to stay there for 30 seconds. When she stood up again, she was shivering, but the sun quickly warmed her again. Now she didn’t want to leave the river. She’d never immersed herself in freshwater before, or stood around in nature totally naked. She felt connected to the earth in a way she’d never imagined possible, or even desirable before. Isabel was a city girl; it was where she’d lived all of her life, and her pleasures had been from manmade things. But this was something completely different. Suddenly she was aware of the age of the wilderness, of how many generations it stretched backwards, untouched by the hand of man, and it seemed special to be there.

“Isabel!” Peter’s voice broke through her reverie, echoing around the woods.

“I’m ready!” she called back, and in seconds, he was there, lifting her up in his arms again.

There were two metal cups of tea by the fire and some toasted bread and scrambled eggs.

“Wow, this is amazing!” Isabel said. “If I’d known camping could be this much fun, I’d have tried it years ago.” Peter laughed, looking at her indulgently. He probably thought she was some silly city girl. The food was amazing. Even the tea was unusually delicious.

“Do you have to work today?” Peter asked, interrupting a companionable silence.

“Yes. I’ve got quite a big project to finish, but I’m really flexible about what time I get started. I tend to work best in the evenings to be honest.”

“Mmm, so do I,” Peter said, reminding Isabel that he had some kind of secret job he didn’t want to tell her about. “I’ll take you home when we’ve finished eating.”

*

Peter’s car pulled up in her driveway an hour later. As he opened the car door on her side, Isabel realised that she was about to be carried into her house by a huge man, wrapped in a rug, in full view of all her neighbors.

“It’s ok, I’ll walk,” she told him as he leaned in to pick her up. She wrapped the pelt around her, which was now unbearably sweltering, climbed out of the car and ran for her front door. The tarmac was boiling on her feet, but at least it was smooth. She opened the door quickly and leapt into her hallway. Safely obscured from the neighbors’ view, she slipped the pelt off and started to hand it to him, but then she checked herself.

“Actually, would you mind if I kept it?” she asked him.

“Please do,” he replied, and she thought he looked pleased. He was now standing on her threshold and she had a strong impulse to kiss him, but held back. Returned to civilization, he looked dark and forbidding, and she couldn’t believe they’d recently shared such intimacy.

“We’ll meet again soon,” he said, inclining his head towards her. Short of anything else to say, Isabel nodded, and he walked back to his car and was gone.

When there was nothing but some stirred-up dirt on the driveway to indicate that The Wolf had been there, Isabel closed her door. She wandered naked through her hallway and into her kitchen. Parting from him always seemed to leave her empty. She yearned to be back in the forest with him, surrounded by the hues and sounds of nature. The house she loved seemed drab and colorless. She walked a few laps of the house, realizing that she was pacing around, like a restless animal. Her mind was full of Peter, and every sense seemed to be enlivened by him: his spicy, exciting scent; the taste of his mouth; the undulation of his muscles beneath his smooth skin; the hard, angular beauty of his features; even his low, gravelly voice with its alluring hint of a foreign accent. She smiled to herself, recalling the catch in his voice when he pronounced certain words, syllables that must have been unfamiliar to him as a child.
Stop it!
she told herself. She was getting that tell-tale tingle in her stomach, and she had no right to – this was just a hook-up situation. She met him on a kinky website, for god’s sake!

Isabel took her phone out of her bag and looked at the time. It was only three hours since she’d had scrambled eggs, but her stomach was growling. She was starving! She opened the fridge and looked at the few things in there without enthusiasm. The new-found dullness of her flat also made her eager to be around people. She wished Kara was around. In fact, she wished she could be magically transported to their favorite lunch place in Chicago, and that they were munching on the best salt-beef bagels in the city while dissecting the previous night’s events. A certain small, dark-haired girl with a snarky sense of humor wasn’t a bad substitute though – that was if she hadn’t taken her morning break already. Isabel picked up her phone, located Josie’s number and hit dial.

“Yes, great plan! I’m starving too!” Josie exclaimed. “I’ll see you in Norma’s in half an hour.”

Isabel went to her bedroom and reluctantly got dressed. Her favorite worn denim cut-offs were scratchy and her tank top was suffocating, clinging far too tightly to her body. Perhaps naturists actually know something the rest of us don’t, and they’re not just a bunch of weirdoes, she mused, but the thought quickly turned into an attack of the giggles as she imagined herself playing tennis in nothing but a pair of sneakers with pot-bellied old men at a naturist holiday camp.

*

Isabel let out a whoop of delight when she pulled into the driveway of the retro-themed diner. It was perfectly done, in stainless steel and pink neon, shaped like a cross between a converted bus and a spaceship. Inside was black and white check tiles and turquoise vinyl upholstery. She skipped through the bar area and found Josie in a corner booth. She was also wearing cut-off shorts, teamed with a grey marl tee, with the sleeves rolled up. Josie didn’t seem to be wearing a bra under her t-shirt, and her hair was tousled, both contributing to the impression of someone who’d got dressed in a hurry. Josie flashed Isabel a huge grin and thrust the menu in her direction.

“Ok, food first, then you’re going to tell me all about this hypothetical head!” she said. Isabel laughed, blushing at the same time.

“Nothing like skipping the preliminaries!”

“Hey, I’m a direct kind of girl!” Josie threw her a carelessly flirtatious smile. Isabel smiled back. She liked Josie more and more every time they met. There was so much on the menu she wanted to choose. Eventually she went for a Philly cheesesteak, surprised at her craving for meat. Josie ordered a cheeseburger, and they both chose strawberry shakes.

“So….?” Josie said, as soon as the menus disappeared. Isabel placed a finger over her lips and looked up at the ceiling.

“Let’s just say, I got more than head this time around.” She laughed self-consciously. Josie fixed her dark eyes on Isabel’s face.

“Details, please! So, you had a date with someone last night, right?”

“Yes, second date.”

“And how did you meet?”

“Well, this is pretty embarrassing, but we met through a dating site.”

“Noo… that’s not embarrassing at all.” Josie waved her hand dismissively. “In this day and age, are you serious? Everyone I know’s doing it, in Cleveland, over here, everywhere! You get to meet so many people you’d never come across otherwise, because they’re not in your social circles, or at your local gas station.”

“Ha, I guess,” Isabel said.

“And especially down here. Marianna’s got a couple of guys she’s planning to introduce you to, but single guys – I mean hot single guys – aren’t that easy to come by. Not that I’m looking, of course!” Josie let out a cackle. “Artists aren’t often the best dating material either – that’s why I got myself a regular guy.”

“Yeah, I think that was my reasoning,” Isabel said, stirring her milkshake with her straw. It was so thick, the straw was barely moving. “That and I felt like it would give me a chance to dip my toe in, without having to start full on dating if I didn’t want to.”

“So, this is the first time you’ve been with a guy, since – ?” Josie asked.

“Yes.” Isabel nodded. “It’s been five dry months.”

“Wow.” Josie looked at her solemnly, as if five months without sex was completely unfathomable.

“At first I didn’t miss it so much. I mean, I’ve never seen myself as such a sex person, you know? Or, at least, I’ve always thought that real-life sex wasn’t that amazing and it’s all about what goes on in your head.”

“And now?” Josie’s eyes were eager. Just then a waitress in a rockabilly dress, complete with a net underskirt and brick-red hair in bangs across her forehead, rollerskated over with their food. She’d barely put their plates on the table before Isabel picked up her cheesesteak and took a huge bite. It was incredible: perfect steak; real provolone that tasted like it was sliced off a larger piece, not some plasticky garbage; plenty of onions and hot jalapenos. From the look on her face, Josie was taking the same pleasure in her burger. Isabel dropped her voice to little more than a whisper.

“Well, the other day, when this guy went down on me, it was easily the best of my life. But, you know, like I was telling you, there’s not much contest there. But then, last night, I also totally had the best sex of my life, period!”

“That’s awesome! So what made it so hot?”

“I don’t know.” Isabel broke eye contact. “Actually I do. I’ve always had a thing for being dominated, by, you know, a really strong guy.”

“You’re into alpha males,” Josie butted in, nodding. “I hear you. I like ’em big myself.” She dipped two fries in her milkshake and popped them into her mouth.

“Ew, that’s gross,” Isabel said, glad for the distraction. Her face was getting hot and she hoped Josie hadn’t noticed.

“Just try it!” Josie poked a finger towards Isabel’s fries. Isabel shrugged and picked one up and did the same.

“Actually, it is weirdly good. I usually hate sweet and savory together, but this somehow works. Think of all those dipping opportunities I’ve missed out on during my life!”

“If you don’t try, you never know,” Josie replied. “Anyway, back to the alpha man. Are you going to see him again?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure,” Isabel said. She was confident they’d meet again. He’d said so, and she had the strong impression that he was a man of his words. In fact, if he didn’t want to see her again, he’d probably just come out and tell her. She sucked her lips in to stifle a giggle.

“What is it?” Josie looked amused.

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s like a really serious, intense guy. Different from anyone I’ve met before, really.”

“For example?”

“Well, last night when he came to my place, I was all dressed up, stockings, garters, everything. But he insisted that we left the house, and he drove me to the forest and we had sex for the first time there.” Josie’s milkshake tipped over and the little that was left of it spilled across the table.

“Oh, god, sorry!” Josie snatched the glass and turned it upright. “I’m not usually so clumsy.” She shook her head.

“Are you ok?” Isabel asked. She looked more shaken than a moment of clumsiness justified.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just overshot my target,” Josie said with a little laugh. The waitress skidded to a stop by their table and mopped up the spill.

“What does this guy look like?”

“He’s got dark hair, olive skin, these crazily intense, like, amber eyes, and he obviously spends half his time in the gym – even though he denies it,” Isabel finished, and was shocked to see a strange expression on Josie’s face. She couldn’t interpret it. She tried out ‘sadness’ and ‘disbelief’, but they didn’t seem quite right. A mixture of jealousy and anger were more on the mark, but she couldn’t see any reason why that would be the case. “His name’s Peter – do you know him?”

“No.” Josie shook her head firmly. “Doesn’t ring any bells.” She dropped her head to her food and Isabel continued to stare at her a few moments longer. This was the first time that Josie had seemed anything other than open and playful, and she had no idea what had just happened.

“Did he say why he didn’t want to go all the way the first time?” Josie said after a silence.

“No. I’m none the wiser,” Isabel replied. She wasn’t ready to tell Josie that they’d actually met through a kinky website and that she’d made a verbal contract with him not to question anything.

Josie stuffed the last couple of bites of burger into her mouth.

“Isabel, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go – I need to get back to work.” She was already standing up and dropping her half of the check onto the table.

“No, that’s ok. Let’s catch up another time,” Isabel said. Josie air kissed her and walked quickly out of the restaurant. Isabel puffed out her cheeks and released the air slowly. That had been beyond confusing. Josie had been acting a bit like, well, a bitter ex, she realized. But Josie didn’t even know Peter, and there’s no way they’d been together, because she was with Rob. She finished her cheesesteak. There’d been a couple of neurotic friends early in her college days, always full of some drama or another, but Josie didn’t seem anything like that. Maybe it actually had nothing to do with the conversation they’d been having. She’d call her later and check she was ok, she decided. And in the meantime, nothing was going to ruin her mood.

Isabel paid the bill and left. The streets of Silver City were busier than usual. It was Saturday, she reminded herself. There was a farmers’ market in the main street and people were buzzing around, buying produce and eating out of cartons. It looked buzzy and fun. And she just didn’t feel like working today. Instead of heading home, she parked the car and wandered over. She strolled around the stalls, chatting to the stallholders and customers. Everyone wanted to know about her, how long she’d been in Silver City, and what kind of artist she was. It was a real community, Isabel thought, with a burst of happiness. She stopped for a beer at a quaint old bar with windows that opened wide onto the street, and before long, she’d been making new friends. Since the evening was drawing in, she might as well stay for a few more beers, she reasoned. She got involved in raucous games of pool with a couple of guys, until it got pretty late and she ended up leaving her car behind and taking a taxi back home.