Blindfolded Innocence

by Alessandra Torre

  The walk-in closet had a granite counter and I hoisted myself up on it, pulling the shirt and sweatshirt on once I was seated. "What time does Martha get in each day?"

  "Typically around 6:30; really whenever she gets out and about. She lives above the garage, in the carriage house apartment."

  I stopped swinging my legs. "She lives here? Why don't we just borrow some clothes from her? It's only like, seven o'clock."

  He raised his eyebrows and looked at me. "I'll wait for you to meet Martha. She's not someone you want to borrow clothes from on her time off. She commits 40 hours a week to me and has made it very clear that living on property does not make her available to me after hours. I have to respect that."

  I raised my hands. "Okay, it was just an idea. Obviously, not a good one."

  He had pulled a set of shorts out of the stack, and handed them to me. "These are the smallest I got. They have a drawstring, so you can probably tighten them to a point where they won't slide off. They'll look ridiculous, but I won't tell anyone."

  I pulled the shorts on and jumped off the counter, pulling them the rest of the way up. I cinched the string as tight as I could and tied it.

  "So, you gonna feed me, or should I pick up fast food on my way home?"

  He grabbed me, lifting me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and I giggled as he jogged down the stairs and into the frigid downstairs. He deposited me on the kitchen counter and headed to the fridge.

  His kitchen was built with three materials - stone, granite, and stainless steel. It was commercial grade, though I was pretty sure cooking wasn't in his skill set. As if he was reading my mind, he spoke from behind the open refrigerator door.

  "I don't cook, but Martha always leaves more than enough food. Let's see, we got chicken and rice, vegetable soup, and meatloaf. Any of those sound good to you?"

  "They all sound great. I'll take some chicken and rice if there is enough."

  He pulled an armful of Tupperware containers out, stacking them on the counter. I could see the meals he mentioned, plus a few vegetables and a salad. One container looked like banana pudding. My stomach growled.

  We ate at a small round table in the kitchen, on paper plates and with disposable silverware.

  "You and Martha typically eat together?"

  "No. She likes her space."

  I raised a brow. "Antisocial?"

  "Sort of. She's like the grouchy neighbor everyone stays away from. We have an understanding. I stay away from her, and she keeps the house running and fridge full. She respects my privacy, and I respect hers."

  "Sounds a little cold."

  He looked up at me while waiting on his soup to cool. "A lot of people are overly interested in my activities. It's nice to have someone who keeps their distance."

  I toyed with a piece of broccoli. "So, about your activities…I have some questions."

  "Shoot."

  "What would happen? I mean, explain the scenario that would occur."

  "That would all depend on you. The purpose of the meeting is for your pleasure. What are some things that turn you on?"

  "You know, normal stuff."

  "Normal stuff?"

  "Yeah."

  He sighed. "Julia, we are kind of doing this backwards from a normal flow. Typically, we would grow in our relationship until we are at the point where you would be comfortable sharing your fantasies with me - no matter how sick or slutty or dirty you may think they are. Then we would find a way to play out those fantasies, together. I want you to know that you don't have to do any… activities right now. We can have a normal, typical relationship until we build the level of intimacy where you can share those fantasies. Then we can act on those. I only brought this up now because I didn't want to sideswipe you with my lifestyle late in the relationship. I wanted to be honest with you now, in case it was a deal breaker for you. I don't want to waste your time, or mine."

  "And I want to find out now if this is something that I would not be okay with. So I won't waste my time or yours if it is something that I can’t handle."

  "Understood."

  "So, going off of the understanding that I am turned on by basic, vanilla stuff, how would the scenario play out?"

  He spoke carefully, not taking his eyes off me, as if walking through a minefield. "There are a few ways this can play out. First, we can either go to a club and pick a partner, or you can describe to me what you want, and I can give you a selection to choose from - their applications if you will. Then I would bring that person to you."

  "What would happen once they are here?"

  He shrugged. "Whatever you are comfortable with. I would suggest we stick with heavy petting or oral as an expectation. If you want to take it farther than that, you can take it as far as you want. I would expect, given how sexual you are, that you would get into the experience once it begins. I would also suggest we set a time limit for your first time, like fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, I would get us alone and ask you if you want to stop. The goal is to make sure you are comfortable the entire experience, that nothing occurs that you don't want to. You would be in control until you are ready to turn that over to me."

  I had tilted my head to the side, listening to his words and trying to envision the meeting. It sounded… fine. Not anything I couldn't handle. I looked up, into his expectant eyes and nodded. "Okay. I can handle that."

  We cleared the table and did the few dishes in comfortable silence. Apparently Martha had trained Brad well, he seemed diligent about following her rules, a fact I found funny since he seemed to break every other rule. As I dried a glass, a sudden thought popped in my head and I started to laugh.

  "What?"

  "What was up with that elevator? The alarm, lights, sprinklers?"

  "Sorry - I had a hand in the building design and specs. I pretty much used the philosophy “Go big or go home” with most of the building’s options."

  "You knew that would happen?!"

  "No!" He started laughing. "I didn't read the damn manual - I just told them to get every option available. In retrospect, it might have been a slight waste of corporate dollars."

  "Well, at least I know never to pull a fire alarm in the building."

  He grinned and handed me a bowl to dry.

  ---

  At 10pm, Brad walked me to my car. The moon was out, and frogs everywhere were croaking. Other than that the road was silent, lights off in the surrounding homes. He invited me to stay the night, but I declined. I needed my own bed and some alone time to think.

  We stood by my car, his hands in his pockets. I still had his gym shorts and enormous T-shirt on, my dress clothes were in a plastic bag hanging from my hand. I started to unlock the door and stopped, turning to him.

  "What happened with Broward's wife?" I need to know.

  He sighed heavily. "I don't have any big fancy excuse. There is absolutely no justification for what happened. We were on a corporate retreat, in Aspen. I was down at the bar, drinking, and Claire showed up. They had had a fight about something, and she was pissed, downing drinks faster than me. As time passed, she got less pissed at Kent, and more friendly to me. I should have said no, or called Kent, or done anything other than what I did."

  "Had sex."

  "Yeah. Had sex. We went to my room. It was over fast, I didn't even finish. We both knew it was a mistake and stopped. She went back to her room, immediately told Kent."

  "I didn't know you guys had corporate retreats."

  He laughed wryly. "We don't anymore."

  "What happened after that?"

  "The next morning, Broward had a meeting with Clarke. Told him what happened, said he wanted me gone. Clarke disagreed, told Broward if he wanted me gone, he'd have to buy me out himself. Broward didn't have the capital."

  "So you stayed."

  He nodded, his face grim. "So I stayed. I know Broward hates me, and I don't blame him for that, but the firm is my home too. I'm not leaving unless I'm pushed out, and I won’t lea
ve without a fight.”

  “Shocker. And you seem so docile.”

  "Hey, go easy on me. It's been a long day." He moved close to me, pining me against the car and grabbing my waist with his hands. He bent down and gave me a long, deep kiss, squeezing my waist. I threw my hands around his neck, kissing back and tugging on his coarse hair gently.

  "It has been a long day, Mr. De Luca." I pushed him off of me gently and opened my car door, getting in. He backed away and watched me, waiting until I backed out before he turned and headed in the house.

  God, I was a glutton for punishment.

  CHAPTER 32

  I knew the girls would judge my decision harshly, so I invited Alex, my roommate, to a late fast food run. Alex grew up the son of hippies, and his parents took the concept of free love to heart. Alex often wanders naked through the house, and I have seen him date men and women, from young to old.. I knew I could freely discuss just about anything short of bestiality with Alex and wouldn't be judged. I called him on my way home. At the first mention of a free Whopper combo, Alex was game, and he was standing outside by the time I pulled up.

  "Nice outfit, Jules." he said, crawling in my passenger seat. Alex is a six foot tall blond, who would probably be attractive if it weren't for the shoulder length dreads piled high on his head.

  "Thanks," I said, not bothering to explain the attire. I pulled out of our driveway and headed for BK. We rode in companionable silence as I tried to organize my thoughts.

  "How's your new job?" Alex asked, scrolling through my radio stations.

  "It's good. Complicated. How's Julian?" Julian was Alex's current hook-up partner, a tattooed pothead who didn't believe in bathing regularly or shaving.

  "She's good. I don't know how long we're gonna last. She's starting to get all bitchy on me, nagging me about stuff." I tried to look interested, but I was shocked they had lasted as long as they had.

  "How's your love life? Luke still being all stalker on your ass?"

  "I haven't heard from him in a while. I changed my cell and he still hasn't found out where I live, so I think I'm in the clear."

  "Who you dating now? You went to Vegas with some guy, right?"

  "Yeah. I wanted to get your advice on that actually. The guy I'm kinda seeing… he's into like, threesomes and stuff."

  "And your not."

  "I don't know. He's asking me to try it and I told him I would. One time." The words were out of my mouth and I cringed, wishing I could take them back.

  "Good." Alex nodded. "Good for you, Jules."

  "Really?" I risked a glance at him, while putting my turn signal on and preparing to turn into Burger King. He was tapping his knee with a finger and looking out the window, his face unreadable.

  "Shit yeah. Why wouldn't you? You want to have plain old boring sex the rest of your life? Everything gets old after a while Jules, everything. You need to try stuff like this now while you’re young and unattached. Try everything, just to see what you like. You've got the rest of your life to be a married, boring, stay-at-home mom."

  "I guess. It just seems so…wrong."

  "That's because society says we should all be monogamous and have missionary sex three times a week." Alex drawled in a monotone voice. “You got to say “F you” to society Jules, and do what floats your boat.”

  The car in front of us moved up, and I ordered a Whopper combo with a Coke for Alex. I added a medium strawberry shake for myself.

  "Have you every had a threesome?" I asked. We were now parked in the restaurant’s parking lot. Alex had his food, and was noisily sucking on his Coke's straw.

  "Yeah. A couple." He stuffed a few ketchup-laden fries into his mouth.

  "Did you like it?"

  "One experience was really hot - one wasn't. A lot depends on who you do it with - kind of like sex. You know - like how you can have missionary sex with two girls and one is fucking hot and I come in two minutes, and the other one I fall asleep during?"

  "Well I don't know exactly what that's like, 'cause I've never fucked a girl missionary-style, but yes, I understand your point."

  "So when are you doing it?"

  "I don't know. I guess in a week or so. I don't really have any reason to wait. I'm kind of using this experience to decide if I want to date the guy."

  "Like a test?"

  "Like a qualifier."

  Alex shook his head. "Man, I don't understand women."

  This coming from the guy who was eating post-nooky breakfast with a 60-year old woman last Monday. I shook my head with a smile and started the car, headed home.

  ---

  Friday Broward returned. I rode up the elevator, noticing brand new carpet beneath my feet, nervous about seeing him. I felt like something had changed between us since he told me about his wife, but that may have been me feeling paranoid because of my actions with Brad. The wing buzzed with activity all day, everyone working on the normal workload plus the documents related to the mediation settlement. Brad called my office around 3pm, and I smiled when I saw his extension show up on my phone.

  "Yes.." I said coyly.

  "Got dinner plans?"

  "No, but I don't plan on doing anything with you until I can make a decision about us."

  "You mean you want to skip the cheap talk and go straight to bed?"

  "Theoretically speaking," I said.

  "Well, I need to find out what you want so I can set it up. We can either do that over the office lines, or you can bear the pleasure of my company for some brief time."

  I thought for a minute. "Fine. How about breakfast at your house this Monday. Then we'll do the dirty deed on Saturday night."

  "Why Monday? Why not Saturday or Sunday?"

  "No. I want my weekend. Plus," I added wickedly, "I want to meet Martha."

  ---

  The weekend passed quickly, mostly due to a MTV Real World Marathon, in which I watched the entire season of Real World Hawaii and ate about nine bags of butter popcorn and three Digornos pizzas.

  Monday morning I rang Brad's doorbell at 6:30am. I was dressed in a grey knee-length pencil skirt and black sleeveless sweater. I had black pumps on, cute but not too sexy. The door was answered by an African-American woman in her 50s, my height but about 250 pounds. The woman was dressed in a faded red shirt, jeans, and white tennis shoes. She crossed her hands over her huge breasts and made a show of looking me up and down, blocking the doorway.

  I gave her my friendliest smile. "Good morning. You must be Martha."

  "Uh-huh." She lifted her chin slightly then twisted slightly, calling over her shoulder while she kept her wide body blocking the doorway. "Bradley! That girl is here for breakfast!" She turned back to me, her face unmoving, holding her bodyguard pose till Brad appeared over her shoulder. He patted her and she moved, grudgingly, taking a few steps back and continuing to stare at me. Talk about the Gestapo.

  I stepped inside, and offered my hand to her. "I'm Julia." She looked at my outstretched hand like it was a piece of diseased meat. Finally, with Brad staring at her, she shook my hand. "Nice to meet ya," she muttered, then turned and waddled into the kitchen. Brad smiled at me, stepping forward, and giving me a quick kiss. "Brace yourself," he whispered in my ear.

  I sat at the island counter next to Brad, Martha on the other side of us, loudly banging pots and pans and doing a lot of muttering under her breath. From my seat next to Brad I could smell the soap from his shower, and see a small nick where he cut himself shaving. Martha said something that included my name and turned to look at me.

  "I'm sorry, what was the question?"

  "Your eggs. How do you want them?!" she demanded, giving me a strong look that indicated what she thought of my intelligence level.

  "Scrambled please." I shot Brad a dismayed look and he tried to hide a grin under his hand. I poked him under the counter.

  Martha served us at the counter. She had prepared eggs, bacon, grits, and biscuits. The woman may be a tad prickly, but she could cook. I dug in.


  "I'm going upstairs. I'll let you two eat and be back down after you leave for work. Just scrap the plates and put them in the sink."

  "Will do. Thank you Martha." Brad said, spreading grape jelly on a biscuit.

  I smiled and waved goodbye at her. "The food is delicious."

  She glared at me. "Thank you Miss." Ripping her apron from around her neck, she hung it on a hook by the door and left, the screen door hitting with a loud smack behind her.