by Mimi Strong
He crossed the room and pressed the intercom button to let the delivery guy up, then he raced over to get his jeans and tidy up. Following his lead, I did the same, getting back into my clothes much more quickly than I'd gotten out of them.
I repeated the question, “When exactly did you order the food?”
He pointed to the clock above the mantle. “Right on time,” he said. “I timed it out from when you phoned me, figuring we'd be ready to eat right about now.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but the delivery guy was already at the door. Jacob chatted with him for a few minutes as he paid for the food.
Once we were alone again, I pulled up a stool at his kitchen counter—the only place in the tiny apartment to eat a meal like a civilized person.
I said, “Did you time the food to arrive … after we had sex?”
“Yes,” he said plainly, looking innocent. “Was that wrong? Tell me what I did wrong, Lexie. I didn't mean to offend you, it's just ...” He pointed back and forth between himself and me.
I opened up my packet of chopsticks and rubbed the wooden sticks together, laughing. “I don't know why I'm being so silly,” I said. “Of course it's fine.”
He leaned across the forehead and kissed me on my forehead.
“You're the best,” he said.
I opened up the steaming food containers as Jacob grabbed some plates and napkins.
We ate dinner in contented silence.
After, we watched some inane TV shows together, stretched out on the fold-out bed. He said I was welcome to spend the night, but I thought about my own bed and my own shower, plus having fresh, clean clothes for the next morning, so I thanked him and got ready to leave before midnight.
At his door, he kissed me goodbye and said, “I'm glad you called.”
“Sorry for twisting your arm, but I had a good time.”
“Any time,” he said, and he gave me another peck goodbye.
The drive home was even faster, with no traffic, and I got my teeth brushed and was back in my own comfortable bed within half an hour.
I let out a long, satisfied sigh and settled in for a very pleasant sleep.
3: Dining in the Dark
On Saturday, I was finally free of Mrs. Chong and her collectibles, and I planned to spend the entire day in my pajamas.
The intercom buzzed, and I thought it would be my elderly neighbor needing help with her groceries. To my surprise, it was a messenger.
I ran down to the front entrance rather than buzz up a stranger, and was greeted by the most adorable young man on a bicycle, who handed me an elegant bundle of flowers and a card.
I thanked him and returned to my condo, buzzing with excitement.
Inside the card was an address, a time, and … nothing else.
I stuck the flowers in some water, grabbed my laptop, and sat on my vintage teak sofa, where I googled the address.
Turned out, the address was from this weird new restaurant. The waitstaff were all people with vision impairment, and the patrons dined in the dark.
Absolute, pitch-black darkness.
So as better to enjoy the food, apparently.
Seemed like a big pile of what my grandfather would call horsepatooie, but the invitation had to be from Mr. Thorne.
My fireman, Jacob, would never think to pull something like this off, and I wasn't dating anyone else, casual or otherwise.
Although … there had been the husband of the personal shopping client, the silver fox. I'd kept him out of his wife's way by letting him watch me get changed inside the luxury boutique's changing room. He'd helped me out of my panties, then he took me to heaven. Several times.
I'd returned the favor, and I even adhered to his share-happy wife's strange rules, by making clever use of a sock.
That had felt like a one-time only deal, and I didn't think this dinner invitation would be from him, though it was a possibility.
I thought about Mr. Luthor Thorne, and the first time we met.
I'd been working in his mansion, banned from seeing him. He'd climbed in his own bedroom window like a burglar, like a gardener gone rogue. He pretended he was just a man doing work around the mansion, but his manner and his too-even tan gave him away, not to mention that gorgeous dick. I'd seen his dick the day before, when I'd been hiding under his desk. (Kind of a weird story, I know.) That day, I'd had his delightful manhood inside my pussy, but not in my mouth, and I'd hungered for it ever since.
Mr. Luthor Thorne.
In his custom-made shirts, and one of those expensive, luxurious suits.
I stroked the fabric of my vintage sofa, but it was no substitute. I wanted the real deal. The man, the suit, that deep voice, that giant, throbbing …
I rubbed my thighs together in eager anticipation. My nub needed only a gentle prodding to awaken, firmed up and ready for action.
What would he do to me?
My thighs rubbed together eagerly.
What wouldn't he do!
I looked for something hot on my computer. Anything. I had a few photos saved in a special directory marked “Minutes from Meetings,” and I pulled the photos up into a slideshow.
The first photograph was in black and white, of a fully dressed woman in thigh-high stockings, being greeted at the door by a man in a suit. He said hello to her by putting one firm hand under her skirt.
I put my hand down my sweatpants and got busy.
The second photo was a woman, naked, in a narrow hallway, with one man in front of her and one behind her. That photo nearly blew my mind the first time I saw it, and it did the trick this time as well.
The slideshow continued, through a collection of photographs ranging from tasteful and erotic to down and dirty, with nasty-looking girls with smeared makeup getting firmly rooted by hard-looking men.
As I circled around and around my clit, moving faster and pressing down harder, I thought about big cocks, plunging in and out of me, and a man moaning, as hot jets of his seed sprayed into me, making my pussy even hotter and wetter.
In my imagination, the men had cocks like firehoses, blasting hotness into me. It was weird, but I was sure men had even weirder fantasies.
Five hours later, the taxi dropped me off in front of the restaurant for my date with Mr. Thorne. My date? Hell, yes, this was a date. We were dating.
I wore a black pencil skirt and a new blouse, in a deep purple hue of eggplant. I'd spent ages on my hair and makeup, which was silly, considering we'd be eating in the dark, but I figured we'd do something after dinner, in the light, and he could see me then.
The taxi pulled away, and I was alone, on the sidewalk.
I'd been to the place once before, but that was back before it had turned into the strange dine-in-the-dark restaurant. At one point, as recently as a year ago, it had been a family restaurant, with schnitzel for the fathers, spaghetti for the kids, and lots of salads with heavy dressings for the mothers.
My stomach grumbled, and I tried to remember what I'd eaten that day. Had I eaten anything since breakfast? Possibly not, if you didn't count candy, and nobody counts candy.
I tried to peer in the windows, but they were blocked and blacked out, to keep the outside streetlights and car headlamps from lighting the place up, I guessed.
I wondered if there were a few candles or night lights inside, like you'd see in a movie theater, for safety. No, probably not. I'd read reviews saying the place truly was pitch-black, but the food was divine.
My heart started to pound. I was afraid, but I didn't know if I was more afraid of being in the restaurant, being in the dark, or being there with … Mr. Thorne.
I'm not afraid of the dark, but it's natural to have an aversion, I think. We have eyes and sight for a reason.
I wondered what would happen at dinner. Or after dinner.
Mr. Thorne couldn't take me back to his place, because he'd made some ridiculous bet with Grace, the woman he worked with. He'd promised he wouldn't date any girls for three months,
of which it had been less than one month. I didn't know what the details of the bet were, but he seemed unwilling to get caught and pay the price.
I'd cleaned up my condo, assuming we'd go back there. We'd already had sex once already, so even if we were starting from square one, I wasn't planning to be that coy. I'd put fresh sheets on the bed, so he wouldn't smell Jacob.
I was getting hot between my legs again, anticipating messing the sheets up with sweat and sex with Mr. Thorne.
I entered the restaurant and found, to my relief, there were candles.
To the attractive woman standing inside, I said, “Thank goodness there's some light! Phew!”
“Oh, just here in the lobby,” she said. “You'll look at the menu here, place your order, and then I will guide you to your seat.”
“Really.”
She nodded. “And what's your name?”
“Lexie Ross.”
She looked at the computer screen and said, “Your party's already seated.”
That figured, since I was about ten minutes late, due to traffic and a slow taxi driver who wanted to chat me up while checking me out in the rear view mirror.
I said, “Is my party a gentleman?”
She laughed. “Don't you know who you're meeting?”
I felt shameful and slutty, but I asked anyway. “Does he have black hair or silver hair?”
She raised her eyebrows and gave me a cheeky look. “Black. Wavy. Green-brown eyes. Strong jaw and brow line, a real man's man.”
“That's my lover,” I said, smiling. “He likes to play games, so he made me think I might be meeting one of his business colleagues here tonight.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “It's just the two of you, and you're in a private room.”
“Private room?”
Some other people walked in the door, talking excitedly.
The girl beckoned me closer to her and said, “Officially, it's a room that isn't on the building plans. It doesn't exist. But if it did exist, people could do anything they wanted in there. And you have it booked for the entire evening.”
I fanned one hand over my blushing face. “Of course,” I said.
She then handed me a tablet from the stack on her little podium, and showed me how to use my finger to scroll through the menu. “Just click the things you want, and the order goes in to the kitchen.”
“Wow,” I said, admiring the technology. Those tablets weren't cheap, and the restaurant had a pile of them, instead of menus. The prices weren't visible on my screen, which meant I didn't want to know what the things cost! Thank goodness I wasn't picking up the tab for this one, or my entire week's earnings from admiring and organizing Mrs. Chong's precious ceramics would be completely wiped out.
The hostess led me through a dark corridor, and then through a velvet curtain. I blinked several times, but still couldn't see anything.
I said to the hostess, whispering, “Is this safe? Don't you need to have the EXIT signs illuminated? Like for fire safety?”
My friend Jacob, the fireman, would have been horrified to see how dark the restaurant was. Just horrified! It was a shame I couldn't tell him about it, but part of our arrangement as casual friends and occasional lovers was we didn't talk about other people. We kept things safe between us, of course, because Jacob had a lot of other lovers besides me. I didn't mention the condom when I was recalling our last tryst, but we did use one. (And then, another one.) I used condoms a lot, but I omit the detail from my stories and from my memory, because it's just hotter that way.
Speaking of safety, the hostess assured me that there were lighting systems in place, in case of emergency, and that I was quite safe. “You're in good hands,” she said, and then she opened a door, by the sound of it, and ushered me into a room. I could tell by the change in sound—the disappearance of other diners talking and utensils scraping plates—that we were in the private room.
She said, “Your server will knock before entering with your food, and it won't be long.”
And then the door closed.
I flailed my arms out to make sure she was actually gone, and not just standing there for a laugh.
I said, “Hello?”
A deep voice came back, “Hello.”
My knees shook, just like the girl's knees in my fantasy. Had I been projecting my own fears onto the version of Suzanne in the fantasy scenario? I'd never been afraid of a man before, not like this.
“You're late,” he said, his tone somewhere between consternation and amusement.
“You're lucky I came at all.” I edged my way around the room, hands out, feeling for my chair. The room wasn't large, by the feel of it. It was bigger than a closet, but I could nearly touch both walls with my hands outstretched.
He chuckled. My hands landed on something warm and woolen, his shoulder. A warm hand came up to cover my hands, holding me in place. His touch gave off sparks.
He said, “At last, I get to touch you again. I thought your voice would be enough, but I've been craving your touch.”
I pulled my hands away. This time, I found my chair and got myself seated. The chair was wooden, with no padding in the seat, and it was hard under my bottom, which was already aching for the man in the dark room with me.
“What was the wording of your bet with Grace?” I asked him. “Was it just that you can't see another woman? Is that why we're meeting like this, in the dark? Where you can't see me? Is this a sneaky little loophole?”
He laughed, that deep, voluminous voice so much richer than it was over the phone. “She doesn't know I'm here. She'd probably make me suffer if she did.”
“What are the terms? What do you have to do if you cave?”
Something touched my knee, under the table. I inhaled sharply and tensed my back.
“That's my hand,” he said. “I can't see your lovely face and wanted to make sure you were real, and not a figment of my imagination.”
Now it was my turn to laugh, and I did. I slid down in my chair so his hand could work its way up along the tops of my thighs. Our table wasn't big, but it was in the way. I heard the scrape of him moving his chair closer to me, edging around the side of the table so he could gain access.
Both hands were on my legs now, so hot and electric, double the fun, running up and down the outer edges of my legs. My breathing changed, becoming more shallow. I parted my legs, inviting him up, but he kept his hands away from my valley. Oh, he was going to make me wait.
“Sorry I was late,” I said.
“Mmm.” One hand moved in between my legs, a few inches, then hesitated. “I thought you were going to stand me up.”
“I considered it.”
“Why?”
“Because I was mad at you.”
“Hmm.” The hand moved up my legs, under my skirt, and stopped, just inches from my moist panties. He stroked my inner thighs along the seam of my panties, up and down. I slid down a little and nudged toward him, urging him on.
The finger ran up over my panties and then down the center line, over top of the fabric, then back up again, and over my aching nub. I felt like jumping out of my seat, finding him in the dark, and jumping on his lap, but I held myself steady.
Let him come to you.
That had been the advice my mother gave me back when I was a teenager, dating for the first time.
“You have all the power,” my mother had said, and I wanted to believe she was right.
My breath caught in my throat as he stroked my nub.
“You were mad at me,” he said.
“Yeah, because you had phone sex with my friend Suzanne. You shouldn't have done that.”
He laughed and pulled his hand away, leaving me aching for more. In the pause that followed, I explored the table top with my hands and located a glass of ice water, and a round glass of something else. I stuck my finger in the top. “Is this wine?”
“Taste it.”
I took a sip of the ice water first, and then of the wine. It smelled like wine, tas
ted like wine, but in the dark, my taste buds didn't know what to think, except that it was good.
He said, “I don't usually drink white wine, but the staff here recommended white over red in case we spill on ourselves.” He chuckled. “Plus, white wine's cold, so you can tell when it's hitting your lips.”
I took another sip and noted the sensation. It was true that I could feel the weight of the glass, but it was only the coolness on my lips that let me know when I'd tipped back far enough. I drained the rest of the glass to help calm my nerves. I didn't normally drink so quickly in front of a date, but he couldn't see me, so I figured what the hell.
He asked me, “How's work?”
“Exhausting, but satisfying.”
“You must enjoy helping people.”
“I do!” I smiled in the dark. “Wait, are you teasing me? Are you being sarcastic? I'm sure my job's pretty dull compared to your business deals.”
“Lexie, if I didn't want to know, I wouldn't ask.”
“Oh.”
“So, what sort of things did you do for your clients this week?”
“Mostly rearranging porcelain dolls.”
He chuckled. “That doesn't sound so exhausting.”
“You'd be surprised.”
“Surprise me,” he said, and he sounded sincere.
And so, I proceeded to tell him, all about the week's job for Mrs. Chong, and all of her silly dolls. The woman had four children, all grown up, with grandchildren, but she seemed to love her porcelain dolls even more than the grandkids.
Mr. Luthor Thorne laughed at all of this, as though it was the most absurd and entertaining thing he'd heard in ages.
“Porcelain dolls never let you down,” he said. “She's a smart woman.”
“I think she's lonely.”
“Hmm,” he said, and I imagined him smiling in the dark.
I said, “We could have had the job done in two days, but she booked me through to the end of the week.”
The hand returned to my leg, rubbing close to where I wanted to be touched, but not quite where I wanted him. The glass of wine had gone to my blood, and I was boiling. Boiling to be pleasured.
He said, huskily, “Sometimes there's no substitution for the human touch.”
