Trade Secrets

by Kathleen Knowles

  “I’m working late. Erica wants this thing done for next Tuesday. I don’t know when I’m getting out of here, but the last train to the City is in an hour, and I’m not going to make it. Can I—?”

  “You ought to stay with me,” Sheila said instantly. “Text me when you’re ready, and I’ll pick you up. I have a guest room and an extra toothbrush. Don’t worry.”

  “Really? That would be fabulous.” Tony thought, Guest room? Yes, that makes the most sense, but is that what I want? Sheila seemed to have been waiting for her call. Or maybe she was always prepared to have women stay the night with her with no warning. Tony dismissed the implications of that thought. Sheila would be the kind of person who planned ahead and prepared for whatever might transpire, whatever circumstances. Sheila’s question about the Leonardo and its problematical answer floated into Tony’s head and then out again.

  After their hasty dinner, Tony and Gordon returned to the engineering lab. Tony made a couple of adjustments to the procedure, and Gordon changed the Leonardo’s program. It still couldn’t render the right result according the to the quantity of analyte that Tony had spiked the samples with, but it was getting closer.

  Gordon was gray-faced, and at nine o’clock he said, “That’s it. I’m done for the day. My brain refuses to work. It’s off the clock for me. We can pick up where we left off tomorrow morning. Do you need a ride or anything?”

  Tony felt the way he looked, but when she said, “Nope. I’ve got a friend picking me up,” a lovely little rush of anticipation overrode her fatigue.

  * * *

  Sheila strode through her condo doing a quick inspection. It was guest-ready, thanks to the efforts of her cleaning service. Tony was coming over, but was it for romantic purposes? Sheila thought not. She’d likely be exhausted and merely want to go to sleep. But a tiny spark of arousal lit her mind and body anyhow. It was possible they could…Though it would be just like them to spend their first night together platonically. Never mind. Whatever would happen, would happen. It was times like these that Sheila was most grateful for Buddhist training. She needed to keep her emotions under control and be there for Tony.

  She turned on the hot tub and chilled some wine, just in case Tony wanted a drink. She pulled out some snacks: fruit and nuts and cheese. She wanted to be sure that if Tony wanted something, she was ready to provide it, no matter what it was.

  Sheila sat down on the couch and concentrated on breathing and calming herself. The ping of the text from Tony saying she was ready startled her, but she grinned and texted that she was leaving. It was convenient that she lived twenty minutes from the GHS facility.

  As she pulled up to the GHS front door, she noticed a couple of cars in the lot. Some people were working late. Erica must be a either a slave driver or uncommonly able to inspire loyalty and hard work.

  Tony opened the car door and said, “Whew, am I ever glad to see you.”

  “I would like to think that’s always true.” Sheila liked to tease Tony sometimes, but she was also trying to cover her uncertainty.

  “And it is, but especially tonight.” Sheila decided the prudent interpretation of that comment was that Tony was tired from working a long day.

  On the way to Sheila’s home, Tony gave her a short rundown of why she was working late and again thanked her for the offer of a place to crash.

  “I’ll have to go back to GHS tomorrow morning, but I hope I can go home tomorrow night and sleep in my own bed and change clothes. We—Gordon and I, that is—think we can finish the final run-throughs Monday.”

  Sheila steered through the quiet streets of Palo Alto and then its next-door neighbor, Menlo Park. Tony appeared to be feeling okay, but her manner gave no clue of what she expected the night to be like.

  “Is Erica still at work?” Sheila asked.

  “Oh, yes. She famously never leaves before ten and often stays until midnight. Then she comes back at five or six in the morning. She claims to need only four hours of sleep a night.”

  “That seems a bit unhinged and maybe unhealthy,” Sheila said. “But I guess if you’re going to make your staff work until late at night, you ought to set a good example.”

  “She’s inspiring, amazing, really. We all want to please her.” Tony looked out her window, talking half to herself. Sheila wondered what Tony was actually thinking but decided not to ask. She’d find out eventually.

  “That’s good to hear. Start-ups need loyal people because it’s way hard to make something like this a success. Well. Here we are.”

  It was a dumb thing to say, but in spite of all her Buddhist training, Sheila’s nervousness flared as she pulled into her parking space in the garage under her building, turned the car off, and plugged it into its charger. She moved through her familiar homecoming motions automatically, while her unusually busy brain flew ahead.

  Tony exited the passenger seat and favored her with an enigmatic glance, then repeated vaguely, “Here we are.”

  * * *

  Tony was certain Sheila’s home would be ultramodern, sleek and spare, much like her. She would surely have new, up-to-date furniture and the latest in kitchen gadgets, and everything would shine. It wasn’t exactly like that.

  Though her living room wasn’t cluttered, and the sofa and chairs were clearly not old, they looked soft and comfy. The lighting was low, and some kind of soft, New Agey music was playing. The biggest surprise was what Tony assumed was an altar that dominated the living room. It sported candles, a big statue of the Buddha, and lots of other things Tony didn’t quite recognize.

  “Huh,” she muttered involuntarily as she examined it.

  Sheila had dead-bolted her front door and taken her jacket off, and she walked over to stand next to Tony in front of the Buddha.

  “This is a little much, yes?” she asked in a self-deprecating manner.

  “Oh, no. I’ve only seen something like this in a temple. I went to the Zen center in SF for some reason once.” Tony touched the singing bowl and looked over the candles and prayer symbols thoughtfully.

  “You’re a serious Buddhist?” She turned to look at Sheila, who was standing behind her. Sheila’s expression was unreadable, but she seemed to be watching for Tony’s reaction.

  “I don’t know about that, but I try to live my life in a way that follows Buddhist principles.”

  “I’d like to know more about that, but maybe some other time,” Tony said.

  “Of course. You must be tired. Do you want something to drink? Do you want to sit in the hot tub for a bit?”

  “I don’t want anything alcoholic. It would probably send me right to sleep. The hot tub sounds good, but I don’t have a bathing suit.” Tony realized, as soon as she spoke the last sentence, how stupid it sounded. Bathing suits in hot tubs were not expected. Tony had visited the Kabuki Hot Springs in Japantown in San Francisco on women’s nights and gotten naked with strangers. Sheila wasn’t a stranger, which was likely the problem

  “I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,” Sheila said. “Whatever you want to do is fine.”

  Her mind racing, Tony continued to mindlessly finger the objects on the altar, including the crystal. Because of her silly remark about bathing suits, the air around them had taken on a sexual charge. Was that where this was going? Tony had been laser-focused on work; she’d pushed all those sorts of thoughts of sex out of her mind, but they had suddenly leaped to the fore. Sheila surely felt the change in energy because she had practically whispered her last two statements. Tony was being presented with a challenge to propel their connection forward, and she realized she wanted to take it. Her mental and physical fatigue receded, replaced by the prospect of making love with Sheila.

  Sheila was standing near her, not touching her, but Tony was hyperaware of their proximity. She stopped fiddling with the objects on the Buddha altar and turned to face Sheila. Her face, partly shadowed, was still, and she looked attentive.

  “Yeah. Hot tub sounds good. I could use some relaxatio
n.”

  “Absolutely. It always helps me sleep better.” Sheila had recovered her aplomb. “I’ll go collect some towels and drinking water for us. If you’d like, you can go ahead and get in. It’s out on the deck, through this door. I’ll just be a moment or two.”

  Sheila then turned and walked away. Tony was astounded at how sensitive she was, almost as though Sheila could read her mind.

  Tony went out on the deck and turned the hot-tub cover back. She undressed, looking up at the sky. A few stars were winking, but the lights of Silicon Valley dimmed most of them. It was a mild, late-September night—not cold, not warm, the epitome of Bay Area’s excellent weather.

  She lowered herself into the water, the sensation fantastic. Hot tubs could be too hot or not hot enough, but this one hit the sweet spot. She found the button for the jets and turned them on. Sunk up to her neck in swirling warm water, Tony realized how tense she was as she began to relax.

  Sheila emerged from the living room onto the deck, wearing a bathrobe and burdened by towels, plastic tumblers of water, and another bathrobe. She set everything down on a deck chair and took off her robe. Tony struggled to stay casual and not stare but found it impossible. Sheila climbed into the hot tub and took a seat on the bench across from Tony and grinned at her.

  “How is it?” she asked, gently. Tony had absorbed a quick impression of Sheila’s body before she looked away. She had mid-sized breasts and hips, flat stomach, and long legs. And, surprisingly, a pierced navel.

  “Feels great. Working for twelve hours straight did a number on me, but I wasn’t conscious of it until I got in the hot tub and it’s like ah, time to chill, at last.” She tilted her head back against the rim of the tub.

  Sheila laughed lightly and fluttered the water with her fingers. “Isn’t that the truth? You never know how hyper you are until you’re not. We tense our entire bodies as though we’re bracing for an attack. We forget to breathe deeply, which makes us even more keyed up. Anxiety plus adrenaline. It’s not good for us.”

  “No. I suppose not. How do you stop it?”

  Sheila took a deep breath. “I meditate, and I try to always check in with my mind and my body and ask, ‘What state am I in?’”

  “I don’t think of anything else but what I’m doing in the lab.”

  “Focusing on the task before you is mindfulness as well, but it’s not good if your mind and body are in a state of tension like a stretched rubber band. Where do you carry all your tension? Shoulders? Neck?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Do you want me to give you a neck massage?”

  “Uh, sure.” The sexual energy that was at a low-level hum notched up in volume as Sheila moved over and sat next to her on her bench. They were naked and extremely close together.

  Tony turned slightly to let Sheila have access to her neck, and her butt made contact with Sheila’s thigh. As long as they’d been sitting opposite one another, submerged up to their armpits, Tony could pretend nothing was going on. Some dim lights were hanging on the corners of the deck to provide light for safety, but after that one glimpse, Tony couldn’t see Sheila as she sat in the dark water. Sheila put her hands on Tony’s shoulders and squeezed.

  “Relax,” she whispered into Tony’s ear. She kneaded Tony’s tight shoulders and stiff neck. Her touch was heavenly, and she kept it up for a while as she found the points of tightness in Tony’s muscles and worked on loosening them.

  Tony didn’t exactly fall asleep, but she slid into a sort of semi-consciousness, where she remained aware of multiple sensations: Sheila’s hands on her neck, the light brush of her nipples against her back, warm water.

  “Better?” Sheila asked softly.

  “Yes.” Tony was barely able to form the word.

  “Good.” Sheila kissed her neck, just under her left ear. Tony hadn’t known how sensitive a spot that was until she felt Sheila’s lips.

  “Is that okay?” Sheila asked.

  Tony was reduced to a nod. Complicated feelings swirled in her: sexual arousal, apprehension of a different sort than she had been experiencing—the anticipation type. And it was leavened by calm and Tony’s sense of the inevitable.

  Sheila turned Tony around and deftly lifted her onto her lap and embraced her. The full body contact made Tony gasp. Their kiss was far more urgent than any of their others. Their tongues met as their mouths opened. Dreamlike, Tony’s mind split into two, one half experiencing the touches she and Sheila were sharing and the other half observing their actions.

  “Come with me,” Sheila said, taking Tony’s hand as she stood up and had Tony step out of the hot tub. The abrupt withdrawal of Sheila’s body and the blast of cool night air jarred her. Sheila wrapped her in a towel, then put on her bathrobe. She led her through the living room and into the large bedroom in the back of the condo.

  I know what’s going to happen. It’s what I want.

  Tony wasn’t tired anymore. She was wide-awake and alert.

  They stood by the bed, and Sheila rubbed Tony with the towel as she kissed her. She threw off her robe and let the towel fall away.

  “Aren’t we going to get the sheets wet?” Tony muttered, knowing this was probably a pointless question.

  Sheila kept kissing her but snickered against her neck, “Oh, such a practical girl you are. It’s fine. Here. We can dry off some more.”

  She yanked the covers aside and lay down, pulling Tony on top of her, then swiftly rolling her over so she was on the bottom. Tony tried to still her perpetually active mind. Not the time for talk. Just feel. Sheila was stronger than Tony imagined, and she was, in effect, pinned as firmly as one of the dead beetles she’d studied in entomology class. This thought caused her to giggle.

  Sheila raised her head. “What? Am I tickling you?”

  Tony put her palm on the back of Sheila’s neck and shook her head. “No. Sorry. I’ll tell you later.”

  The lighting in Sheila’s bedroom was subtle enough to see some details but not overbearing—in other words, perfect for seduction. The next thought that floated through Tony’s mind was of how many other women had been where she was. Stop. Thinking.

  Sheila was evidently not overthinking anything. She was on a mission, but it didn’t strike Tony that she was in any way anxious. She wasn’t urgent. She was tender, her movements slow, almost meditative. But effective. Tony was growing more aroused by the second. When Sheila kissed her way down her body, pausing for a moment at her breasts and navel, Tony’s active mind at last emptied, and she let pure sensation take over.

  Sheila pushed her legs apart and knelt between them, her hands gently resting on Tony’s hips. She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and looked into Tony’s. At this point, Tony wanted more than anything for her to continue. She was ready.

  Sheila slowly thrust one finger in, then a second. She moved all the way out, then back in, murmuring approvingly as Tony rose to meet her. She kept it up until Tony moaned. “You’re killing me.”

  “No. I’m not. You’ll be fine.” Sheila withdrew her fingers slowly, slid down the bed, and replaced her fingers with her tongue. Tony let out a tiny scream. It was almost unbearable how good that felt. Sheila licked her clitoris slowly once, then again, but faster. She pressed Tony’s thighs back and fully opened her. Tony could move only enough to tense and relax her legs. Their lovemaking was still somehow meditative. Sheila was methodical, stopping and starting in response to Tony’s movements. Tony came suddenly in a series of long contractions. Sheila hung on until Tony couldn’t take it anymore and screamed, “Enough!” She slapped Sheila’s head harder than she meant to.

  Sheila simply said “Okay,” stopped, and returned to her side to scoop her into a warm hug as Tony caught her breath, astounded, grateful.

  Tony began to touch Sheila, dragging her fingertips across her chest and stomach.

  “Your fingers have an interesting rough feel,” Sheila said.

  “Oh, it’s my finger-prick scars,” Tony said. “Am I hurtin
g you?”

  “Not at all. Please continue.” Tony’s fingers were sore, but she noted that fact in a distant fashion. She wanted only to be as good to and for Sheila as Sheila had been for her.

  Chapter Eight

  Sheila woke up early, as always. It was the same no matter how much or how little sleep she’d had. She didn’t mind because it meant she could get certain things done in the early morning. She smiled fondly at Tony, who was still soundly asleep. She was such a dear and so earnest and a surprisingly good lover. Sheila tried to not have high expectations when it came to sex because they were such a trap. Buddhist principles counseled against having expectations anyhow. But it was a natural inclination.

  Sheila slipped out of bed, put her robe and slippers on, and went to the living room. She recalled one of her dates, a handsome software-marketing expert who was intelligent and a smooth talker, befitting her profession, but she was lousy in bed. Not a drop of sensitivity or awareness.

  Tony’s serious demeanor had struck Sheila immediately. This was a woman who would surely pay the utmost attention to her. And she was right. Tony was ardent but a bit tentative at first, in a good way. Her style was perfect. Sheila liked control, but she really liked giving it up as well. Buddhists described that as balance.

  At her living-room altar, she lit a candle, said a little prayer of gratitude, then meditated for fifteen minutes. As she stood up, she touched her Qin Yin statue with a kiss from her fingers to Qin Yin’s head and a whispered a thanks. Then she went and made coffee and woke Tony up with a fresh cup.

  “Oh, wow. This is wonderful,” Tony said. “It’s all wonderful. I can’t believe I’m here with you.”

  Sheila kissed her hair and her cheek. “It’s quite real, and if you didn’t have to go back to work right away, I’d give you another dose of reality.”

  Tony looked so woebegone, Sheila had to laugh.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. There’s always later. And that reminds me. What were you snickering about last night as we were, ahem, getting started?”