by Alisa Easton
“Never mind,” I said giving up, “You were right. You should go. I should have never allowed you into my home.”
He surprised me by taking my face in both his hands and kissing me with the same passionate hunger that had started this whole confusing experience. I tried to pull away but he kept me locked in place. I put my hands up to fight him off but the struggle only caused the towel to drop to the floor leaving me once again fully exposed to him. Even though his eyes were closed as he continued to kiss me, my nakedness was not missed. He let go of my face and pulled me tight against him letting his hands wrap around my back and my waist. I felt the stirring in my groin knowing I still wanted him just as much and it angered me even more. I was torn between hoping this would turn into something more and wishing that I could unlock myself from his grip and push him out my door. In the short span of time I’d interacted with him, no other man had come close to having this effect on me. I blamed it on my current lack of sleep but somewhere inside I knew that it was more.
He gripped my bare bottom in strong warm hand forcing one damp thigh between mine. I rubbed against him eagerly as his tongue explored my mouth again. I inhaled deeply and wrapped my hands around his neck refusing to let him out of my grip until he surrendered to me. He moved his hand between my legs again and rested his palm against my wetness and I moaned. He just held me there but even without movement, my excitement grew and I felt him sigh against me. He didn’t want to leave me but I knew he was going to pull away anyway. I felt him hesitate and stop kissing me.
I ran my hands through his hair and looked at him, once again searching for some answer, some reassurance that I might see him again, that I might one day experience the sort of pleasure that he could give me but I only saw confusion and sadness.
“We’ll find each other again,” he whispered at last and those words alone nearly sent me spiraling into orgasm as his palm still held me firmly between my legs. He let one finger slip between my folds and I cried out. Then just as quickly he let me go and without saying another word, he opened the door and walked out into the first glimpses of dawn while I stumbled after him in a lust-saturated daze.
“Wait,” I said but he just kept walking, hurrying to the street in the direction from where we’d come. I wondered how he would get home. Did he live close enough to walk? Did he have a car parked nearby? I wanted to follow him, determined not to let him go, but it occurred me halfway down the front walk that I was still completely naked and I ached for sex. There wasn’t anything else I could do but watch him disappear.
There I stood dumbfounded, aroused, and naked in my front yard. The morning chorus of birds began to chirp and from somewhere I smelled the wafting aroma of fresh coffee brewing. A new day was dawning but I didn’t want to let go of the night. I waited there for what felt like an eternity, not bothering to cover my flesh, not caring if the neighbors looked out their windows.
I knew I needed to find him again.
Chapter 2
I reached over and grabbed for the phone as it nearly vibrated off the nightstand. I snatched it just in time and rolled over in bed, shielding my eyes against the bright light invading my window. I didn’t bother to look at the caller before I answered. I already had a pretty good idea who would interrupt my dreamless reverie.
“Alex, where you are?” the urgent voice on the other end asked me. I sighed and pressed my head into the pillow as I closed my eyes trying to come up with a good excuse for why I was late this time.
“I’m on my way now,” I lied but I had no doubt that Sylvia could hear the sleep in my voice. She knew something was up the moment I’d answered the phone. The fact that I was late only confirmed it.
“You’re still in bed.” She didn’t ask. She knew me better than that. This wasn’t the first time that we’d made plans and I’d screwed them up. I listened to her groan and sigh and imagined that she probably made the dramatic motion of switching her phone from one ear to the next while coming up with some way to make me feel worse about the situation than I already did.
“Listen, if it works out better for you, we can just plan to get together another time,” I said. I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped she’d agree. I still hadn’t fully recovered from my unusual experience the night before and honestly, I wasn’t ready to let go of all the feelings the stranger had stirred inside of me. I had fallen into a blissful sleep certain that we’d find each other again but as sleep cleared the cobwebs from my fuzzy sleep-deprived brain, I became less sure of this fact. Worse yet, I was afraid that if Sylvia saw me now, she’d see it on me and demand the details. Could I really confess to what I’d done? She’d consider me off the deep end for sure.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alex. I want to see you today. It’s so hard to pin you down to do anything with me anymore and I’m not giving up on you that easily. You get your butt out of bed this instant and make your way to Dino’s or I will make a point of coming over there and dragging you out myself.”
It was my turn to sigh. I could argue but with Sylvia, there was little point. In the end, she’d get her way. That’s just the way she was. She’d been my best friend since we were in grade school and she knew me better than most.
“Give me twenty minutes to shower and get dressed,” I said finally. She agreed and we ended the conversation. I tossed the phone back onto the nightstand and pulled myself up to my elbows. The sheet had fallen away as I slept and revealed the fact that I was still completely naked. The sight of my body in bright sunlight made me shudder slightly. I hadn’t been with a man since Ed and I broke up almost a year ago and before him, I had few serious relationships to speak of. I wasn’t exactly the sort of girl to go stalking the night in search of prey and lure him back to my place for hot sex without even asking his name. I shook my head slowly as if doing so would put the world back into perspective. It didn’t help.
I slung my feet over the side of the bed and made my way back to the scene of the crime - my shower. At least we hadn’t actually had sex, I tried to rationalize. What the hell was I thinking? I’d practically thrown myself at a man with no means of protecting myself at all. Maybe Sylvia had a point about my life. I was going off the deep end in a big way.
I stepped into the shower and turned on the water letting it cascade over me, careful to lather my body with soap to wash away any trace of his touch. I closed my eyes but when I did, I could only see his eyes watching me as he’d pleasured me, the way he’d stared at me with pure hunger. I still didn’t know what held him back from taking me right then and there. God knows I was willing. I felt the sting of arousal in my belly as I remembered him. I didn’t want to feel this way but I couldn’t will it away.
I hurried through the rest of my shower and got dressed in a pair of jeans and t-shirt as I tried to ignore the desire claiming my core. I needed a boyfriend, I decided. It had been far too long since Ed and I broke up and it wasn’t like I didn’t have offers for a date now and then. I wasn’t entirely unattractive. I looked at myself in the mirror as I combed my hair and wondered how I must look to others - how I looked to him. I sighed, it wasn’t helping. Every time I steered my thoughts to a new direction, I circled right back to how much I wanted him to touch me. I put down the comb, grabbed my purse, and ran out the door without bothering to dry my hair.
“I need your help,” I said flopping into the booth at Dino’s across from Sylvia. She was lost in her kindle and didn’t even notice I’d sat down. I uncrossed and re-crossed my legs in frustration. This was urgent. I couldn’t wait. I needed a man now. I needed Sylvia’s help. She was far more experienced in these sorts of emergencies than I was.
Sylvia sighed and turned off her kindle. She practically rolled her eyes when she looked at me, letting her blond hair fall across her face as she leaned forward to sip her coke.
“I’m sorry, okay? I was having trouble sleeping again last night and next thing I knew, you were calling me. It’s not like I went out of my way to mess up our plans.”
“There is something different about you,” she said wrinkling her nose. It was almost as if she could smell it on me no matter how thoroughly I’d washed or how much I’d tried to cover the evidence with perfume. Sylvia always knew. She was like a bloodhound for sex. I watched in horror as she studied me with piercing blue eyes and wondered how deeply she could reach into the corners of my mind to unearth the secrets that lie there. I held my breath waiting for her assessment. She leaned back and folded her arms across her chest but she didn’t say anything. I felt perspiration along my forehead. It was almost unheard of that Sylvia would have nothing to say. Dare I ask?
The waitress interrupted by asking me what I would like. I ordered an iced tea without lemon and then as an after thought added a double cheeseburger with a side of fries to my order, hold the mayo. The waitress jotted it down and disappeared. Sylvia was staring at me with wide eyes.
“What?” I asked feeling suddenly self conscious, “It’s after one and I haven’t eaten a thing. I’m starving.”
Sylvia still didn’t speak and it was making me nervous. The waitress returned and set the iced tea in front of me and I started tearing open packets of Splenda and dumping it into my tea while I waited for any sort of response. She couldn’t still be so angry at me for being late that she wasn’t going to say anything at all? I stirred my tea and finally put down the spoon and tried a different tactic with Sylvia.
“Okay,” I said letting out my breath and sliding my hand along the glass to clear away the condensation collecting there, “there was a man.”
There, I’d said it. I’d put it right out there in the open and she could take it any way that she liked. She could use the information against me or applaud the fact that I finally took the steps to consider anyone other than Ed. She turned her head and looked out the window but she still didn’t say anything. I suddenly felt like I might vomit if this silent treatment went on much longer. What did she want me to say?
I sipped my iced tea and thought about telling her the details of my encounter with the stranger but there didn’t seem to be much point in saying anything until she finally decided to talk to me. One-sided conversations weren’t really much fun. Finally my burger came and I dived into eating as if I hadn’t eaten in days. Erotic oblivion apparently worked up quite an appetite in me. I looked at Sylvia feeling a little embarrassed but much to my surprise, she smiled.
“You don’t have to pretend,” she said.
“Pretend what?”
“That you were with a man last night. I forgive you. I know you’ve been going through a tough time and haven’t been sleeping well and it’s not like you were that late really. But seriously, Alex, you don’t have to go making up stories.”
“I’m serious, Sylvia.” I looked at her in astonishment. I had confessed only because I thought she would sense the truth the moment she looked in my eyes anyway and after all the squirming I’d done, she didn’t even believe me. I should have just kept my mouth shut.
“Alright, so who is he then?”
I looked down at my food and sighed. I didn’t know. It wasn’t going to help my case much.
“That’s what I thought,” she said with a satisfied nod.
“He didn’t tell me.”
Her eyes grew to the size of saucers and she nearly spit out Coke laughing at me.
“Okay, what? You expect me to believe that not only did you have a man in your bed last night but that it was a one night stand with some stranger? You two were what? Just so caught up in passion that you couldn’t be bothered to swap names over spit? Seriously, Alex? I’ve known you since we were kids. You have never done anything so crazy and let’s face it, you never will.”
“What makes you say that? I might.”
“Yeah, and I’ll join the convent,” Sylvia joked. We both knew that with Sylvia’s taste for men, she wouldn’t be able to remain celibate even if she wanted to. She changed her boyfriend like I changed my socks and didn’t believe that any man warranted settling down and getting married. The fact that she worked as a divorce attorney and witnessed one too many marriages gone bad didn’t help matters either. In my case, I figured the whole marriage idea was still open for debate but my dating history suggested that it wouldn’t be one I’d have to solve anytime soon.
“I can’t stop thinking about him,” I sighed taking another large mouthful of my burger. Sylvia frowned at my comment, obviously trying to decide whether or not to entertain my idea of a joke. I decided to brush aside my infatuation for a man I didn’t have a hope of seeing again and get to the heart of the real problem, a.k.a. something that Sylvia could actually relate to. “I need to find a boyfriend.”
Her face brightened instantly. I suspect she’d been waiting to hear those words come from my lips for a very long time. Knowing Sylvia, she’d leave no stone unturned in helping me find just the right one for me, like trying on a dozen pair of shoes until I find the ones that I can actually walk in. I offered her a French fry in a hopeful truce. Sylvia took it and popped it into her mouth but she didn’t really taste the fry. Her mind was already on how she could hook me up. I shrugged my shoulders accepting that I’d just resigned myself to matchmaking hell.
“What sort of man are you looking for?” she asked still lost in thought.
“Oh, I don’t know. The male kind, I suppose.”
“Come on, Alex, help me out here. Everyone has a type. What’s your type?”
“Ed was my type, I guess.”
“No, no, no, not another Ed. We are not going down that road again.”
“What was wrong with Ed? He was a nice guy.”
“That was problem number one. He was too nice.”
“There’s no such thing as too nice, Sylvia. I like nice. A boyfriend should definitely be nice.”
“You want someone a little mysterious and definitely sexy,” she said ignoring me.
“A guy like that isn’t going to be interested in a girl like me,” I protested, “or want the same things I want in life for that matter.” I started to have my doubts that putting my love life in Sylvia’s hands was such a wise move. She waved away my comments and continued to sketch out her idea of the perfect man for me. By the end of it, I’d polished off my plate and I sat staring at her in bloated silence. This wasn’t going to work.
“I waited a long time for you to get over Ed,” she told me leaning forward in almost a conspiring whisper, “You owe me this.”
“I owe you?”
“There is definitely something different about you.”
“I told you what happened. Well, sort of.”
“How did you meet this unnamed stranger?” she said rolling her eyes and apparently deciding she was in a happy enough frame of mind to entertain my little game for the time being.
“I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk.”
“It was raining last night.”
“I know.”
“So how did you meet him?” Now she was confused and I could tell a part of her was starting to hope that I was just making it up. It made her uncomfortable.
“He was walking too.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“And so you just looked at each other in passing and said hey, we’re both bored and we can’t sleep so what do you say we go back to my place and shag senseless?” Sylvia sounded aggravated now. It was either because I insisted on my story being true or it was the fact that I was hopelessly stupid if it was.
“No, we didn’t say much of anything.” I shrugged. It did sound pretty stupid. I wished I hadn’t told her.
“Alex, please tell me you are joking.”
“It wasn’t a big deal, Sylvia.”
“You used protection, right?”
“We didn’t actually have sex so it wasn’t an issue.” I cringed again at the way I’d nearly thrown myself at him, protection or not, “Besides, I’m on the pill anyway.”
“The pill is only going to save you from babies. God damn Alex, wh
y didn’t you tell me that you were so horny? I can get you laid. This isn’t a problem. This is something we’re going to take care of right now. Tonight.”
“What? No… wait, Sylvia. I never said …”
It was too late. Sylvia fished out her cell phone and searched for someone’s number before I could make it clear enough that I had no interest in such a thing. I tried to grab the phone out of her hands as she started speaking to the mystery person on the other end but she dodged my attempts, slid out of the booth, and went outside to finish her call. I sat in petrified silence as the waitress came over to clear the table and leave the check. Whatever Sylvia arranged, I would have to break it. That’s just all there was to it. I got up to pay the bill and stole a glance outside to see Sylvia laughing as she talked with the person on the other end. I hoped they weren’t laughing at my expense. My evening escapades weren’t the sort of thing I needed people to know about.
I went back to the table just as she came back from outside. She was absolutely beaming.
“You are in luck!” she announced.
“I don’t want to hear it. Whatever you arranged, I am not interested.”
“You remember that guy Ben I was dating a while back? Dark hair, brown eyes, hot body?”
“Yes, sort of…”
“Well, his cousin Nick is in town for a couple of weeks and it just so happens that he recently broke up with his girlfriend and is in need of a good cheering up.”
“Oh god.” I slammed my head into the table in defeat. Just what I needed.
“And you expect me to do what with him exactly?” I said into the table.
“Oh baby, that’s for you to decide. From what I gather from Ben, he’s pretty easy going when it comes to that sort of thing. I bet you two will figure it out.”
“I don’t do one night stands,” I said returning to an upright position and steadying my shaking nerves.
“Oh really?” She looked at me with raised eyebrows. “That’s not what you told me twenty minutes ago.”
