“Smart-ass.” She tugged me across the foyer, filled at intermission with well-heeled, mostly middle-aged patrons, mixed in with a few Birkenstocked old hippies, and some younger people in jeans and hiking boots and down vests. The symphony was nothing if not diverse.
We approached a group of people with champagne glasses; our station manager, Bill, was among them and the administrative director of the symphony. Kimberly made introductions, her mane of blond hair tossing, and I got to meet Willis Scott III.
He was the sort of man Kimberly would go for—I preferred them in faded blue jeans or baggy khaki shorts—dark with a bit of gray, handsome; expensive haircut, suit, cologne.
“I’m surprised you enjoy the symphony,” he said.
“Why?”
“You listen to music all day.”
“I don’t listen to it a whole lot. There’s quite a lot to do in the studio while the music’s playing.” Phone sex, for example.
“Sounds interesting.”
I nodded, searching for something to say. “Tell me about what you do.”
He was only too happy to, running off at the mouth about prime interest rates and equity, and how this was a great time to buy up.
I drank champagne and tried to look intelligent.
“I’ve got a new development just north of town,” he said. “Great architecture, real exclusive, beautiful setting. We’ve preserved the environmental integrity, lots of trees and stuff, and we’re keeping it upscale, you know what I mean? Second homes, mostly—”
“If you’re that concerned with environmental integrity, why develop it? It’s not as though you’re providing housing for people who really need it.”
He frowned, his handsome brow wrinkling. “There’s a demand, you wouldn’t believe it. But Jo, you know, if you’re in the market—”
I guess that was what happened when you wore designer clothes or possibly gave off some sort of involuntary slutty radar. “I don’t have any plans to—”
“Call me.” He produced a business card.
“Okay.”
Like a gentleman he held my champagne glass while I opened my purse and tucked his card away.
He moved a little closer to me and tugged my shawl back on to my shoulder. His manicured fingers rested on my bare skin a little too long. “You’re a very attractive woman, Jo. Maybe we could have dinner sometime?”
I stepped back. “I work most evenings, Willis.”
“Lunch, then. And we could drive out to the development after. Commune with nature. How about it?”
“I’ll let you know.” I couldn’t wait to throw away—in the recycling bin, of course—his business card.
“Great shoes.”
That was all I needed, a shoe fetishist. Maybe it was an attempt at empathy.
To my great relief the chimes sounded for the second half of the concert. As we walked back into the concert hall, one of the group—a fortysomething fair-haired woman—walked beside me.
“I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your show.”
“Thanks.”
“You always sound so approachable. I think a lot of people get intimidated by classical music. It’s a shame.”
“It is. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m Liz Ferrar.” She smiled and touched my arm. She whispered, “If Kimberly thinks Willis is a hot prospect for the station, she’s wasting her time. He’s a real tightwad. The whole family is. And he’s a jerk.”
“Fuck, yes. He hit on me so hard, I couldn’t believe it. Liz, don’t you run the women’s center in town?” She was the reference Patrick had given, the one I claimed to know. “I guess you know Patrick Delaney.”
“Oh, yes. He’s a sweet guy. He designed our site for free. How do you know him?”
“He applied to be my tenant.”
“Good. I’m glad he’s leaving Elise—I mean, you hate to see a couple break up, but when they’re both so unhappy…” She shrugged.
“Come visit us—me, I mean, and Patrick, too. Call me at the station.” We exchanged cards.
Happy that I’d made a new friend, I shushed Kimberly so I could listen to the music.
I arrived at the radio station by cab shortly after the concert ended, and settled myself in for a quiet evening. Time to get caught up on paperwork. I had an article to write for the newsletter, programming to select for the next couple of months.
I jumped every time the phone rang.
At two in the morning I shut down, tidied up the console and reached for the phone to call a cab home.
It rang.
No data.
I stared at the ringing phone. I had no obligation to answer—we were off air. After seven rings the caller would be transferred to the station’s voice mail.
But I answered anyway.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“I’m sorry, Jo. I pushed you too hard.”
“It’s okay.”
He sighed. “I want honesty between us. It’s been two nights and I’ve had time to think and…”
“And?”
“We don’t need this sort of relationship. We have plenty of other things to talk about. We don’t have to continue in this way. Unless you want to.”
“What do
you
want?”
He laughed again. “Whatever you’re willing to give. Darling, it was plenty of fun for me but I love to talk to you. It’s up to you how we proceed now. By the way, you looked ravishing at the symphony tonight.”
My voice shot up an octave. “Oh, my God. Please don’t tell me you’re that creepy Realtor. Or that you even know him. No, of course you’re not. Your voice is different…sorry, I’m rambling. You were there?”
“I have my sources.” He paused. “What I’m saying, Jo, is that you should be in a real relationship. I’d be jealous, of course. But I don’t want you to feel…obligated to me in any way.”
“You’re trying to drop me, aren’t you?”
“In a way, yes. I don’t want to lose you. I hope I won’t. That we’ll be friends. I accept that you don’t want to meet. This is entirely on your terms.”
I dropped my head into my free hand and groaned. “I don’t know that we can go back. I’m not really clear what we’re arguing about.”
“I’m not sure we’re even arguing. I don’t want you to get hurt by our…affair.”
“Affair. You’re so old school.”
“Yes, I am. How would you define our relationship?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter? It is what it is, whatever that might be.” I paused. “If I did fuck someone, what then?”
“You mean, should you tell me?”
“Yes.”
“If you wanted to.”
“Tell you or…describe it to you?”
“Whatever you feel like doing.”
He kept throwing the ball back into my court, giving me the control—or pretending to give me the control.
“I might ask you to do the same. Tell me about an encounter you had. Would you do that?”
“If you asked, yes. Gladly.”
I stood, pushing my feet into my shoes and reaching for my shawl. “Let me think about it. I should go home. I’m glad you called.” I was a bit scared. We seemed to have moved very fast into kink territory and what alarmed me most was how it excited me. Kimberly had once said that even ordinary people have the most bizarre sex lives, that a huge amount of kinky stuff goes on in nice normal neighborhoods between nice normal people. I’d asked her what her preferences were, not really believing her, challenging her.
She had leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Woof. Woof.”
Then we’d both collapsed in giggles. But ever since then, my mind had opened up to the possibilities. I’d wondered. I’d been curious.
And now here was my chance to go on my own voyage of discovery and storytelling and while it was exhilarating I was scared by it. Would I regret not going on the kink voyage when I was old and gray (although Kimberly assured me the old hippies were the best—or the worst—depending on how you looked at it)? Would Sinbad have regretted never taking the voyage?
“Before you go…” He cleared his throat. “Very high heels and stockings with seams, my source said. Real stockings?”
“No. Thigh-highs.”
“Ah. No garter belt, then. A pity.”
I smiled at the regret in his voice. “But with no panties,” I lied, and pushed my ordinary white cotton pair down. Not quite a lie.
“No panties at the symphony?” He laughed.
“I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. The orchestra was pretty good tonight. I don’t know if your source actually listened to the music. Maybe he spent the whole night looking at my legs.”
“My source also mentioned your nipples.”
“Your source needs a cold shower.”
“Jo?”
“Hmm?” The air had shifted, or so it felt, although the studio was perfectly warm and comfortable. My nipples were erect.
“Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Take off your top.”
I turned on the speaker to the phone and untied the halter top. It slithered down my torso in a caress of satin.
“That rustling sound…”
“My skirt.”
“Ah. And your nipples…”
“Erect. Very hard. Dark pink like raspberries. I’m pinching them.”
“Good. Are you standing or sitting?”
“Standing.”
“Spread your legs. Can you feel the air on your cunt?”
It was the first time he’d ever used the word, the first time I’d ever liked a man to say it to me. The contrast between his cultured voice and the crudeness of the word made me shiver.
“Now lift your skirt. Tuck it up, if you can, so you can keep your hands on your breasts. I want to see you exposed, the contrast of the black stockings against your skin. That rustling is supremely erotic, by the way.”
“Say it again,” I whispered, my skirt tucked up.
“What?”
“Talk about my cunt. Please.”
“Your cunt.” I could hear the smile in his voice. That’s what we say in the business, when you want to convey an upbeat attitude on mic.
Put a bit of smile in it.
“Your cunt,” he repeated. “I’m imagining your hair looks very dark against the white of your legs. Quite a lot of hair. You’re not the sort of woman who’d shave or wax it into submission. Is your cunt wet, Jo?”
“Yes. I want to touch myself.”
“Not yet. Can you come from touching your breasts?”
I moaned and rocked my pelvis forward. I thought of the pinkness and wetness between my legs, my clit a hard splinter of nerve endings. I pressed my middle finger hard against my nipple as though it was my clit, rotating.
“That’s right, darling. Get yourself off.”
“Talk to me,” I gasped. “I’ll come if you talk to me.”
The studio door banged open, and I blinked as the room flooded with light.
Jason stood there, his mouth hanging open at the sight of me.
I stood there for a moment, horrified, my fingers stilled, before I lunged forward and disconnected the call. I fumbled to pull my top up, my skirt down.
“I’m sorry—” Jason mumbled. He had an erection; I could see it distending his jeans.
“No, I’m sorry. Oh, fuck.” I could get fired for this.
“I was…uh, I didn’t think you were here.”
“I didn’t know anyone else was here.” My fingers shook as I tied the halter top. “I’m leaving now.”
I grabbed my shawl and purse, mortified, further embarrassed by having to scoop my panties from the floor. I’d find another phone and call a cab. I’d wait for it outside, braving the freezing temperature, rather than having to face Jason after what he’d seen.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I walked toward the door, toward him, discovering it was almost impossible not to walk with a sexy sway in the shoes.
“Uh. It’s okay. It was hot.” Jason blushed. He backed away from me. “You’re hot.”
I stopped. I needed a real man, a flesh-and-blood man. Just for tonight.
And then I can tell Mr. D. about it.
I guess I was ready for this journey, after all.
“Jason, I need a ride home.”
HE STUTTERED AN ANSWER—SURE, YES, YEAH
—and jingled his keys in the fidgety sort of way men do, particularly young, hyper guys, and led the way outside. We both fumbled around with the lock and the alarm, jerking our hands away when we made contact with each other.
I hoped Jason was as nervous as I was.
Once outside the fresh air hit my exposed and overstimulated pussy with a cold burn and I clamped my legs together. Another icy caress as I climbed into the front seat of Jason’s pickup and then I squealed as the cold vinyl of the seats hit my thighs.
“You okay?” Jason looked at me with concern.
“Yeah, I’m cold.”
“I’ll turn the heater on when the engine’s warm.”
“Thanks.”
We set off, me very conscious of every bump and ridge in the road, which seemed to address my clitoris with a blatant reminder of what I was about to do. As we neared the all-night drugstore in town, Jason slowed.
“Do you, ah, have, ah, you know, should I…” He looked uncertain. After all, from his point of view I hadn’t exactly spelled out what I wanted him to do. Maybe he thought he was giving the radio station’s eccentric squealing masturbator a ride home after which we’d say good-night to each other and he’d drive off with a merry toot of his horn.
I’d be tooting his horn for sure.
“No, it’s fine, I have, uh, you know,” I replied fluently. Unless he wanted to buy himself a toothbrush? I think I had a spare somewhere. “Thanks for asking,” I added.
We arrived at my house before the truck had reached anywhere near normal temperature, and I eased myself from the seat, relieved that my skin did not separate from the vinyl with a loud, rude sound. Once again the shock of frigid air hit my crotch and I scuttled for the front door, with Jason behind me.
He stood very close to me as I inserted the key into the lock, not touching me, but close, and it would have been damned sexy if he hadn’t been wearing a down jacket. There might actually have been some contact. But I got the door open and lunged for the lights and the thermostat.
Brady appeared, mewed and collapsed on his side in front of Jason.
“Is your cat okay? He just fell over.”
“Yes, he does that to people he likes.”
“Cool.” Jason bent down to pet him.
“Let me take your jacket,” I said, the perfect hostess, and relieved Jason of his jacket—he put his gloves carefully in the pockets, which I thought was rather sweet. He hung his messenger bag on the rack next to his jacket, removing his cell phone.
“I have to…”
“Oh, sure.” I left him to make his call, wondering who it was to. Not a girlfriend, I hoped. Or his mother, which would be even worse. I went into the kitchen to feed Brady, who transferred his affection from our guest to me, weaving around my legs as I tipped kibble into his bowl.
Jason came into the kitchen. He didn’t offer an explanation for his call, which was none of my business anyway, and looked around. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” The perfect asexual inner hostess kicked in at this point and I asked him if he’d like something to eat—I swear the words just popped out of my mouth—while in the back of my head the slutty hostess shouted,
Get him upstairs! Remind him you’re not wearing panties! Unzip him!
“Uh, no, I’m fine.”
I found myself gazing at the banana in my fruit bowl on the kitchen table—Freud would have had a field day with me—and reminded myself sternly to think about the matter at hand. While I attempted to figure out my next move, I picked up the container of cat food to replace it in the cabinet.
And then, proving that one of us had some sense, he came up close behind me—I could feel his warmth, and the nudge of his erection against my butt. His hands slid up my sides. “You are so hot,” he whispered.
I grabbed the edge of the counter, weak-kneed as his mouth moved over my neck, warm and tickling. I turned my head to kiss him, whimpering a little as his hands cupped my breasts. His mouth was nice, gentle and sweet.
I turned in his arms. “Let’s go upstairs.” The slutty hostess had won the fight.
I led him upstairs, enjoying the swish of the taffeta skirt and the assertive clip of the high-heeled shoes on the wooden stairs, and into my room.
He was right behind me, breathing fast. I wondered if he could see up the skirt and decided that as soon as I could I’d bend over in front of him, or part my legs accidentally.
“Okay, Jason.” I turned and he almost bumped into me. “You may undress.”
He gave a huge grin, which made me think that maybe I hadn’t sounded like as much of a dominant bitch as I’d intended. “Sure.” He took off his shirt. Nice chest, a scatter of hair; not superdefined, but pleasant to look at.
I reclined on the bed, one leg outstretched, the other bent, with my wrist resting on the knee. I wanted to see whether he’d angle himself to look up my skirt.
He did, taking a couple of steps towards the end of the bed, ostensibly to put his shirt on the wooden chest at the foot of the bed. The bulge in his jeans, which seemed to be more or less permanent—or had at least been there in the twenty minutes or so since our first encounter at the radio station—seemed even more prominent. He bent to unlace his boots and kick off his socks, then put a hand to his belt buckle.
Show-off. Delicious show-off.
He snapped the button of his Levi’s and unzipped, sliding the jeans down his legs and kicking them away. He wore gray knit boxers that clung to every contour and ridge. Very impressive.
He hooked a thumb into the waistband and looked at me. Then he looked up my skirt again and swallowed.
I slid off the bed and unzipped the skirt, leaving me in my heels and stockings and the silk halter-neck top. I reached into the bedside cabinet drawer for a condom and walked over to him, conscious again of the sexy sway the shoes gave me. I ran my finger down the underside of his cock, through the cotton knit.
He moaned.
I pulled his underwear down his thighs and he stepped out of them, his cock bouncing slightly as it was freed. It was gorgeous, rigid and curving, a drop of pre-come welling at the tip.
He smiled, but his breath came fast. “Can we…”
“Sure.” I pushed him onto the chest at the end of the bed. It had a padded top, kind to the knees. I knew. This was how I wanted him. I stood astride his thighs and kissed him, not the gentle way he’d kissed me, but deep and carnal and wet, while his hands roamed over my breasts and thighs and butt. One hand slipped between my legs and his breath hitched when he found how wet I was and it was my turn to moan as he took a finger to my clit.
I sheathed him in the condom and placed one knee beside him, easing him into me. He gripped my hips hard. “Go slow,” he said, then looked embarrassed. “I mean, I don’t want it to be over too soon. I want it to be good for you.”
“’S okay.” I was very close to coming, as though I was a pot that had been about to boil when Jason had interrupted me at the radio station and now had full heat beneath it. My body had forgotten about the intervening embarrassment and awkwardness and now wanted to go back to where we’d left off. But Jason inside me, that unexpected, delightful presence curving inside me, jerking a little as I moved—I wanted to hold the moment, concentrate on the gorgeous slide and retreat as we fucked.
He untied the halter-neck top and let it fall, lifting a breast to his mouth to suck the nipple. The sensation shot to my clitoris. “Keep doing that. Harder.”
I ground myself on him and came so hard it hurt.
“Christ! I felt that.” And he thrust up as I gripped him, his eyes dark and wide, and shuddered as he came.
I collapsed on his shoulder, coming back into the present and becoming aware of my breathing, his breathing, the rapid thud of his pulse, the scent of our sweat and bodies. He sighed and nudged me. “Jo, I’d better…”
The condom. Of course. He reached to kiss me on the lips—a friendly sort of gesture, for which I was glad—as I untangled myself from him. I crawled onto the bed, leaving the shoes behind, and slid the stockings off. I resisted the temptation to ask him what he’d like to do next, in case he suggested we watch MTV or say he wanted to sleep. I was pretty much wide-awake and I wanted him again.
“Was that okay?” he asked, settling onto the bed next to me.
“Better than okay.” I wondered how experienced he was.
“Cool.” He grinned. “I’ve wanted to do that since I met you.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. No, I’m not.” He touched my breast, making small circles around the nipple, and gave a small sound of satisfaction as it stiffened and darkened. “You’re gorgeous. Sexy. I can’t believe I’m here with you.”
His cock stirred. I reached down and took him in my hand, squeezing gently. I sat up and ran my hands over him, exploring his planes and surfaces. He twitched away as I kissed his nipple, then settled back, sighing. I kissed his belly and thighs, deliberately ignoring his erection, while he stroked my breasts and shoulders.
“Tell me what you want,” he said after we’d kissed awhile.
I reached for another condom.
“Don’t you want more foreplay?” he said earnestly, as though I wasn’t conforming to some textbook of female erotic behavior.
“Sometimes I like hours of it. Right now I want to be fucked.”
“Okay!” He took the condom and rolled it onto himself, then pushed me onto my back, eager to show me what he could do. And for an exercise in stamina, it wasn’t bad, lots of nice sweaty thrusting and flexing and groaning from both of us.
“Have you come yet?” he asked after a while.
“I don’t come like this.” I rubbed my foot up and down his back.
“Shit. Why didn’t you say?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t enjoying it. I am.”
“What should I do?”
“Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“But I…” His hips were moving again. “I want you to…”
“Jason, just shut up and fuck me, okay?”
He stopped, shocked, and then grinned. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
I was a bit worried about his lack of vocabulary for a couple of seconds before he started fucking me in earnest, and hurtled to a climax before collapsing on top of me.
“That was…that was great,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “What would you like me to do now?”
My mind wandered off onto some stuff I’d read somewhere about dominatrices who made their submissives do the laundry or clean the bathroom, but it seemed like a waste of good manpower. I had this gorgeous, unstoppable young male in my bed, all puppy eyes and eagerness, willing to do whatever I wanted, and—
“Jason, I hope you don’t feel I’m using you.”
He looked up from my nipples—very enterprising, while I was thinking of a reply, he had taken the initiative to start kissing his way down my body. “No. I like you. I think you’re…”
Oh, please don’t say I’m hot again. It’s flattering but—
“You’re nice. Like, when we had those third graders tour the station and you showed them around. You were really cool with them. They liked you.”
“Oh. Thanks. I like you, too. And that—oh, that’s nice.” Perhaps everyone’s vocabulary shrank when the sex was good enough. Jason lapped and nibbled at my thighs and my clit, and I came to his supple, energetic tongue, surprised, pleased, thrashing around.
“I’m hard again,” he said, almost apologetically. I wasn’t aware he’d deflated at any point, and I had a feeling I’d come across the used condom in the bed pretty soon.
“Then let’s do something about it.” I handed him a condom and watched him roll it on, kneeling above me. “And I’ll go on top.”
“Will you come like that?”
“Almost definitely.” It was sweet how concerned he was with my orgasms, when I, or any other woman, could out-orgasm him, or any other man, until the cows came home.
And I did. Or at least, until the arrival, not of any cows, but of my new tenant.
“I guess this is it,” Patrick said.
Elise leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’ve been so great about it all.”
“Hey, stop it. Next thing you’ll be inviting me back in and then we’ll start all over again.”
“You’re right.” She stepped out of his arms and he felt as though he were ripping up inside. It was a definite physical sensation, a weird tingle down his arms, adrenaline maybe, or a heart attack. He waited. Was he about to drop dead on his soon-to-be ex-wife’s—or rather, his own—doorstep?
Damn, she’d get his life insurance. The merry widow.
“Yeah. Okay.” He took his glasses off and pinched his nose, hard, to force the tears back. “I couldn’t find the drill. It’s somewhere in the house. It doesn’t matter. I’ll buy another. You need to have one.”
“Do I?”
In Elise’s world there was always someone with a drill, always someone to look after her and protect her and do things for her. Him, her father, her brothers, even Patrick’s friends— God, if he thought any of his friends were screwing her or wanted to screw her, or coming around with their big drills at the ready, he’d kill them, but they’d be insane not to want to screw her….
“Patrick, just go, please.” She looked waiflike and frail, clinging to the front door. She was as tough as old boots.
“I changed the furnace filter.”
“Thank you. You didn’t have to.”
He nodded and trudged to the truck he’d rented for the move.
He drove round the corner, parked and cried for a good two minutes. Well, he thought, blowing his nose, at least he hadn’t cried in front of her.
She hadn’t cried in front of him, either. Shit, he should have torn the house apart and found the damned drill. He’d always despised couples who got into deathly, expensive fights over household items when they divorced, televisions or favorite bits of furniture, but now he understood that irrationality. He couldn’t even bear to think what it would be like if the disputed property were a pet or a kid, but this marriage had none of the above, a thought that did not cheer him particularly.
He put his glasses back on and shoved the truck into Drive, stomping his left foot on the floor in the way he always did driving an automatic, and drove to his new apartment.