Loved Me Once (Love, Romance and Business)

by Gail Hewitt

  "Hey, it's the Tomster, and look at what he's brought home!" The loud whoop and whistling made her jump. Tom offered only an off-handed gesture in the direction of the noisy group.

  "Jerks," he said briefly, not looking at her. "Sorry about that."

  "Sure," she said, following him up the iron stairs at the far end of this range.

  Tom went to the door of the end unit and opened it. She didn't know what to expect, but she didn't think it was this. The space into which they walked was small in size and undeniably masculine in the austere simplicity of its decoration, but it was completely tidy, with books neatly arranged on shelves that acted as something of a divider between the sitting area and the tiny table and two plain, upright chairs that sat next to a kitchenette that was even smaller than the one she and Carolyn had in the carriage house. Past the kitchenette was a narrow passage that led to two doors, one closed and the other open. This must be the bathroom and bedroom, she guessed, quickly averting her eyes because she didn't want Tom to catch her inspecting where he lived. On the wall over the sofa was a large, competently executed landscape.

  "Nice painting," she told him.

  He glanced up from putting lunch on the small table. "My mother's sister did it," he said briefly.

  She looked back at the painting. It was as good as most of those that hung in her own home, and for some reason she was surprised. Before she had time to think about it, he was behind her, his arms wrapping her waist, spinning her around to face him.

  "This is stupid," he said roughly. He began kissing her even as he pushed her back onto the sofa. Her whole body responded so violently that she felt she would suffocate unless her heart burst first, pounding its way out of her chest. She realized they were both gasping for air, and his lips burned against her face. "Come on," he demanded, getting up and pulling her hands so that she found it easier to follow than to pretend resistance.

  He led her along the passage and into a tiny bedroom that was almost filled by a double bed, neatly made up. He dropped her hand and pulled back the spread, then turned around to where she stood, which was exactly where he'd left her, her hands at her side.

  He walked up to her and touched the buttons at the neck of her shirt. "Shall I?"

  She couldn't have answered if her life depended on it. He took her gaze and continuing silence as acquiescence. His fingers moved with surprising deftness from one button to another until he reached the waistband of the plaid skirt she wore. He yanked the shirttail out and undid the final button, then pulled the sleeves down, pinning her arms. Beneath the white shirt she wore a lace-trimmed white camisole and bra, the straps of which always intertwined. He pulled them from her shoulders and downward, and stood for a moment just looking at her.

  "God," he murmured, "you are so beautiful, so perfect."

  She did not resist when he pulled her toward the bed and removed the rest of her clothes and then his own. As he moved toward her, she knew generally what to expect, for, when she was thirteen, the year after her father died, her mother had taken her to the family physician and instructed him to expain the "facts of life" to the alarmed girl. Somewhat reluctantly, he'd done so. It had been informative, if clinical. As for the hurried fumbling that had marked the school-related parties sanctioned by her mother, that had been neither clinical nor informative, just rather messy with wet slobbery lips against hers and clumsy hands grasping unsuccessfully at her clothes.

  There was nothing clumsy about Tom. His hands moved surely over her bare body. It was cool in the room, and she shivered. Without saying anything, he jerked at the quilt folded at the foot of the bed, and pulled it over them, sliding his body down until he was fully stretched out beside her. When he rolled over to hold her again, she could feel the strength of his body and the hardness of his penis against her side. Instinctively, she readjusted her body, and, misreading the movement as a pulling away, he held her more tightly, shifting so that he was half leaning on his elbow, his lips only inches from her ear.

  "I want you so much," he whispered. "This is all I've thought about since the first second I saw you. You are the most amazing . . . "

  He did not finish the sentence, but began kissing her, gently at first, then with increasing intensity until she could no longer catch her breath. Then he slid out from under the quilt and reached into the drawer of the small bedside stand. From it he withdrew a condom, which he removed from its wrapper and put on with what seemed to her great efficiency. It was only then that he turned back and moved to straddle her, his hands spreading her legs. She closed her eyes – not from embarrassment but because it intensified what was happening – and let him do whatever he wanted, let her body respond in whatever way it wanted. Some of what happened was tender, some violent, some a quality of behavior her inexperience had not allowed her to recognize. She was a disembodied being, knowing only that, whatever this was, it felt right.

  At one point, as he was entering her, he stopped. She opened her eyes to see him gazing at her quizzically. She instinctively reached out her arms and pulled him to her, and then he had begun again, thrusting repeatedly and then going so deeply inside her that she involuntarily cried out. He stopped at once.

  "Don't stop," she gasped, and he didn't.

  They stayed on the thin mattress in the tiny bedroom all afternoon, holding each other, tasting each other, sometimes rolling about, arms and legs in impossible contortions, sometimes just lying side by side, catching their breath and murmuring endearments.

  Then, abruptly, Tom jumped out of bed, his naked body fit and muscular in the dim light coming through the half-open blinds. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he muttered. "I'll be right back."

  He raced out of the room, and she could hear him making a phone call. He returned in a couple of minutes, looking sheepish.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, alarmed.

  "The student I tutor. I totally blew him off."

  He slid under the quilt again, careful to keep the cover over her shoulders. "This wasn't exactly how I expected to spend the afternoon," he said, brushing one of her breasts with his fingertips.

  "So you didn't plan to do this?" she teased, surprised at how natural all of it seemed.

  He hesitated. "Well, obviously, I hoped to, you know, at least at some point . . . But I didn't plan for today . . . I mean, I thought we were going to do what we've been doing, just . . . " He stopped. "Shit, you know what I mean."

  He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at her, his face and body little more than an outline in the growing dimness. "You didn't tell me you'd never . . . you know . . . I mean, are you totally sure this is something you want to do?" His voice died away.

  She reached over and kissed him, enjoying the sudden confidence that made her feel comfortable doing this. "I'm sure about everything," she told him.

  He leaned over and kissed her tenderly.

  "Can you stay a while?"

  She didn't even have to think about it. It was a decision based on known imperatives. "I'd better not," she said regretfully. "My roommate might do something stupid if I don't show up pretty soon. She's sort of supposed to be looking after me while my mother's away."

  "That's good," he said with obvious sincerity. "You need looking after." He tracked the curve of her mouth with his forefinger, and she felt a shiver that began at the base of her spine and went through her entire body. "I'd like to look after you," he said softly. She kissed his chin, which was all she could reach. The next thing she knew, they were wrapped around each other and making love again, with even greater intensity than before.

  In retrospect, the next few weeks were divided into what amounted to a pie chart, with time organized in discrete chunks. There was school, two to three classes a day, and the time in between that she spent doing homework rather than socializing with fellow students — on her pie chart she thought of that slice as a purposeful green. And there was Tom, at whose apartment she spent every minute possible — that slice was red, a blazing red. Finally, there was the s
lice of deeply respectable blue that represented the nights she was careful always to spend in the carriage house in the narrow bed only a few feet away from Carolyn's, the blue that represented also the time religiously dedicated to the Sunday morning phone calls from Elizabeth McLaurin. Amazingly, Maggie was able to juggle all of it. She could tell her mother, with perfect honesty, that she was doing well in school, her papers mostly getting A's, just as Carolyn (who was expected to speak with Mrs. McLaurin at least once during each conversation before the phone was handed over to her own mother) could offer reassurance, when asked, that she and Maggie were doing just fine in the carriage house, keeping the place tidy and getting to bed at a reasonable hour every night. When she added that they were eating balanced meals at the proper times, that was stretching it a bit, but only a bit.

  As for the time Maggie spent with Tom, it was the most fascinating, most irritating, most absolutely wonderful experience she'd ever had. Each school day followed the same pattern. The second her last class was over, she hurried toward the Saab and drove to Cloudt's, where she stocked up on those things she'd come to know that Tom preferred — tuna salad rather than chicken, thinly sliced roast beef, the special sandwich buns, lots of lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, coconut macaroons, and a big container of iced tea. Then she'd race back to parallel park on the street next to Tom's building, determined — now that she knew how tight his schedule was — to be as early as possible. Most of the time he reached the courtyard first and was waiting for her. A few days, however, he was late and she arrived first. It was one of those times when she had the odd conversation with the pretty, somewhat older girl whom she found sitting on the bench nearest the stairs that led to the second floor. As Maggie headed for the second bench on this side of the courtyard, the stranger spoke.

  "It's got something goopy all over it. You'd better sit here." She cleared away the stack of books and made room. Not wanting to appear rude, Maggie walked over and sat down, holding the Cloudt's bags in her lap.

  "Thanks," she said.

  The girl glanced at the carry-out food containers. "Indoor picnic?"

  "Something like that," Maggie admitted.

  "Waiting for your boy friend?"

  "Sort of, I guess."

  Maggie had answered tentatively because she wasn't sure what to say. She hadn't thought of Tom that way. He was . . . just Tom. He inhabited a category all his own, no position as trivial as a boy friend.

  "Me too, in a way. At least an ex-boy friend. One of those guys who rushes you hot and heavy, gets what he wants, and then vanishes. I need some tapes I lent him that belong to my brother."

  There was a moment of silence as Maggie tried to decide how she should answer this. "That's awful," Maggie told her. "He sounds mean."

  The girl considered this. "No, I don't think so. Not mean, just totally self-absorbed." She leaned over confidentially. "Never get involved with a guy who's had a hundred girls."

  Maggie giggled. "That's a lot of girls."

  "I'm probably underestimating," the girl grinned, "and there is no way one girl can compete with that." Then she stopped. "Speak of the devil."

  Maggie looked up to see Tom striding through the iron gates, a scowl on his face. It was the first time she'd ever seen him really frown, and it alarmed her. He reached them in seconds. Before she could say anything, he took her elbow and began to move her toward the stairs.

  "I'll be back in a couple of minutes," he said over his shoulder.

  "I just want Jimmy's tapes," the girl called out.

  "I'll bring them with me," he said grimly.

  He was gripping Maggie's arm so tightly that it hurt, and she tried to get free.

  "I see you've met Beth," he said angrily.

  "Is that her name? Do you know her?"

  His grip relaxed somewhat. "So she hasn't been talking about me?"

  "She never mentioned your name," Maggie told him. It was the truth. The girl had not mentioned a name, just a description, a limited one at that. She sneaked a look at Tom from the corner of her eye. Had the girl, Beth, been talking about Tom? Was Tom the one who'd had a hundred girls?

  Once inside, Tom had gone to a drawer of the desk and pulled out a handful of cassette tapes. "I'll be right back," he assured her as he went out the door.

  When there'd been time for him to start down the stairs, Maggie hurried to the window and peeked between the slats of the blinds. Tom was already in the courtyard, striding toward Beth. When he reached her, he handed over the tapes. Beth said something, and both of them laughed.

  About her, Maggie wondered? Was Beth teasing Tom about the 102nd girl? Or were they just making an effort to be pleasant with each other?

  Whatever the nature of their exchange, it was brief, for in a matter of seconds Beth headed toward the iron gate and Tom turned toward the stairs. The conversation must have gone okay, Maggie guessed, for he didn't look upset just . . . relieved. That was it, he looked relieved. She went back to the table and quickly began unpacking the sacks into which Cloudt's put their containers. She didn't want him to think she didn't trust him, that she'd been spying on him.

  They hadn't hurried to the bedroom that day. Instead, Tom helped her make the sandwiches from the things in the Cloudt's bags, then they sat down to eat, just as they would have in the first days they'd picnicked. He was distracted during lunch. Finally, he said. "I guess you're wondering who the girl, Beth, who she is."

  "It's your business," she told him.

  "No, you should know. She's the girl I was dating just before I met you. She seems to think I left her hanging, but it's not as if we had any kind of real relationship." Maggie wanted to believe that, but it was hard. "Beth's a very pretty girl," she told him.

  "I guess so," Tom said with the absentmindedness of a young man who'd always had access to pretty girls. "But it wasn't serious."

  "I guess you've had a lot of girl friends," she said tentatively.

  "Why do you say that?" he asked her abruptly.

  "What you said about leaving college to go to Vietnam," she reminded him. "You said it was no loss to academics because you were mainly playing football and messing around with girls."

  It was only when he relaxed and laughed that she realized how tense he'd been.

  "God, I'd forgotten that. Yeah, I guess there have been a lot of girls, but they weren't serious."

  "None of them?"

  "Not really, not like this." He reached out for her and pulled her to him. She went willingly.

  The next day she arrived at his place to find him waiting for her with a key. "There are some real characters in this complex," he told her. "I don't want you waiting by yourself in the courtyard."

  After that, she went directly to his apartment with the Cloudt's containers and had lunch set out by the time he appeared. It seemed to her increasingly that he was almost always later than she thought he would be, and irritation would alternate with apprehension. Had something happened to him? Had he forgotten? Was he with another girl? With Beth or even the 103rd girl? She would grow cold with the thought that she might never see him again. When he arrived, usually no more than fifteen minutes late, with a laughing explanation of the professor who wouldn't wrap up the lecture or the adviser who held him longer than expected or the accident-induced traffic jam at the Fourteenth Street bridge, she would feel foolish only for as long as it took him to cross the room and enfold her in his arms.

  "ha-ha" inscription and had hardly been cracked. Its title was 101 Things To Do To Drive Him Wild in Bed. As usual, Carolyn was out with one of the half dozen or so guys she saw on a regular basis (obviously she already knew what was needed to drive men wild), and Maggie had a couple of hours in which to read the book with no disturbance other than several phone calls from males looking for Carolyn.

  The time was eye-opening. Up until now, Maggie had been willing, even eager, but hardly aggressive, while she was with Tom. Now, she read, men found sexual assertiveness a turn-on. Some of what the book said was e
mbarrassing, and she couldn't understand what anyone would find sexy about it. Some of it, she admitted, was at least a little exciting. She blushed, with a certain amount of pleasure, as she thought about doing some of those things with Tom, for Tom.

  Next morning, she cut school and went shopping. It took all of her nerve, but she went into a store on Cheshire Bridge with a sign that said NOVELTIES and a window display that consisted mostly of red-and-black lingerie with cutouts in unexpected places. She tried not to look at her fellow shoppers, but when someone brushed against her and a cultivated female voice said, "Excuse me," she looked up from the rack of lingerie she'd been examining to find a conservatively dressed woman who could have been one of her professors already holding several items. Looking around, she saw that the other shoppers were of the same sort — men and women who had stopped off on their way to or from the respectable suburbs where they undoubtedly lived. She felt confident enough after that to look harder at what was on display. She did, however, pay with cash. There was no way this could go onto a charge-card bill that her mother or the trust officer could see.

  Since she hadn't gone to school, she was able to make it to Tom's place in plenty of time to set out lunch and change. The outfit that she'd bought — shortie robe, abbreviated panies with slit crotch, and a bra with cutouts for her nipples — was made of sheer red material, with black lace trim. When she put it on, it felt scratchy and cheap. On the other hand, it was very different from the plain white lingerie that her mother usually chose for her, and the very difference made her feel older and sexier. She stood on the bed and examined herself in the unframed mirror that hung over the dresser in the bedroom. She thought she looked okay, if on the skinny side, in the outfit, which seemed designed for someone larger and much better endowed. She was about to chicken out and change back into her usual clothes when she realized that Tom had come in without her hearing him and was watching from the door.