by Alexis Gold
Calvin spun around to find Steven and Randy walking towards him. He watched as they took him in and then their attention passed to Morgan standing beside him.
“Randy, Steven, this is Morgan.”
They shook hands and greeted one another. Calvin could see the obvious admiration on his friends’ faces, and somehow he felt strangely proud. He knew he had no right to. Morgan was not his by any means. Yet somehow he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling.
“I guess we better mingle.” Calvin said, tearing Morgan away from Randy and Steven.
Calvin and Morgan walked through the crowd, trying cocktails as they went, looking at and admiring some of the things some people were wearing.
As the night wore on, both grew increasingly happier. They laughed and talked and lost themselves in the comfort of one another. Calvin could feel the three champagnes he had consumed beginning to work their way into his system, and then he saw her. She was standing in the midst of the crowd, with two men on either side of her. Her hair fell in a stream of liquid gold around her shoulders, her eyes seemed to blind in their stark blueness, her body looked tall and dreamlike in a figure hugging red dress. She looked magnificent.
“Calvin?” Morgan’s voice sounded as though it was far away. “Calvin are you okay? What is it?”
Calvin turned back to Morgan with the greatest difficulty.
“That’s her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sasha,” he said. “That’s her, over there.”
Morgan turned in the direction Calvin was staring at. She felt her stomach plummet as she took in the gorgeous creature that Calvin was so obviously enamored with. She felt instantly inferior. She felt as though she were too short, too plain, and too dark. She turned her attention back to Calvin’s face, but it only made her feel worse.
“Should I go over there and speak to her?” Calvin asked, sounding nervous for the first time that evening.
Morgan hesitated only for a moment. “Yes.”
“Really?”
“You’ve been pining for this woman for how long?”
“Okay,” Calvin said summoning up his courage. “I’m gonna go talk to her.” He was just about to head off in Sasha’s direction, when he turned abruptly. “Will you be all right on your own for a little while?”
Morgan nodded, “I’ll be fine.”
Calvin smiled, “I’ll see you in a bit.”
He walked off, leaving Morgan standing there, feeling the night’s brightness slowly slip away from her line of vision. She walked off to the side of the room, hoping to avoid the crowd. She made her way to the balcony and walked out, the noise muting suddenly as she passed through the massive glass doors.
“Morgan?” a voice behind her called.
Morgan turned to find Steven standing there.
“Oh, hi,” she said distractedly.
“Where’s your date?”
“He abandoned me for a beautiful woman,” Morgan heard herself say.
“That’s crazy,” Steven said sincerely. “No other woman in there could be more beautiful than you.”
Morgan smiled, allowing herself to enjoy the compliment, but still wishing desperately that it had come from someone different.
***
Calvin couldn’t believe it. He was standing there, dressed in a stiff black suit, talking to the woman of his dreams. She was even more exquisite up close. Her eyes shone, and her cheeks glowed with a rosy hue. He resisted the urge to reach out and run his fingers through the fine gold of her hair. They ended up on the balcony at the right edge of the hall.
“I usually avoid these parties,” Calvin told her. “But this time I’m glad I came.”
“Me too,” Sasha said, leaning in and smoothing out his lapel with her palm.
“You are so beautiful,” he told her, the words came more easily than he would have thought.
She smiled, “You think so?”
“I do.”
“Then maybe you should ask me out,” Sasha suggested with a flirtatious smile. “So that you can appreciate my beauty at a later date.”
Calvin felt his insides do a little victory summersault. “Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow?”
“Yes I would, and let’s go dancing afterwards.”
Calvin felt his throat constrict with fear, but he forced himself to smile and nod. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds good.”
“Wonderful,” Sasha said.
“I should get going now,” Calvin told her.
“Wait,” Sasha called. “You haven’t even told me your name.”
Calvin froze momentarily. “My name?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m Sasha.”
“I know,” Calvin replied, feeling a little let down.
“You do?” she asked.
“I work in the building next to yours,” Calvin said. “We’ve met a couple of times.”
Sasha looked more than a little surprised. “We have?”
“Yes.”
“You’d think I would have remembered you,” she said with a coquettish smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, handsome.”
Then she turned and walked away. Calvin stood there and watched her leave. He had imagined this moment for three and a half years. He had imagined what it would feel like to finally ask Sasha Meyer out, and to have her say yes. He had imagined feeling elated, nervous, scared, excited, and many other emotions besides, but watching her walk away, he had never expected to feel deflated.
***
Both Morgan and Calvin were preoccupied with their own thoughts on the drive back home. Neither attempted conversation and the silence lasted until Calvin had parked outside of Morgan’s house. She was about to get out of the car when he reached out with one hand and stopped her.
“Wait Morgan,” he said. “I need your help.”
Morgan settled back into her seat and waited for him to continue. “I asked Sasha out.”
Morgan maintained a straight face. “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m nervous.”
“What do you have to be nervous about?” Morgan asked him. “You have everything you need to get through this date.”
“It’s not really that that I’m worried about,” Calvin admitted.
“Then what is it?”
“I’m worried about the end of the date.”
Morgan raised her eyebrows. “You mean whether or not you should kiss her? I thought we already discussed that.”
“Not quite,” Calvin continued. “I didn’t actually tell you what I was really afraid of.”
Morgan raised her eyebrows and waited for him to tell her.
“Well.. I guess… I’m nervous about the kiss itself.”
“You’ve kissed women before haven’t you?”
“Well yes… but I don’t know if I’m very good, and to be completely honest, I haven’t had as much experience as you would expect.”
Morgan let that sink in. “Oh.”
“This is really embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Morgan said quickly. “You can trust me remember?”
“What do I do?” Calvin asked in near desperation.
“The only thing you can do,” Morgan said curtly. “Practice.”
“Practice?” Calvin repeated in confusion. “How on earth—”
He lost his words in the next breath, because Morgan had reached out and cupped the side of his face with her hand, pulling him in and pushing her lips up against his. It was not the type of kiss that started slowly and built from there. It was the type of kiss that started all at once. It was the kind that had your blood boiling from the get go.
Her lips were the only thing he could taste, full and insistent, Calvin lost all sense of where he was. The shock of the kiss was overtaken by the force of it; the passion that engulfed him. He felt her tongue trace his lower lip and he shivered involuntarily. Slowly he gave himself over to it. It was not something he could fight. The feel of her, the taste of her, it was into
xicating. He had the urge to pull her over the gear shift and onto his lap, so that his hands could explore her body. Before he could act on the desire however, she had broken away from him, leaving him leaning in and breathless.
He had no time to formulate a sentence. By the time his heart rate had slowed and he was able to form a coherent thought, Morgan had already wished him an abrupt goodnight and disappeared into her house. Calvin sat there in his car in utter confusion, replaying that kiss over and over in his head. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he made his way back to his own home. He did not think of Sasha again for the rest of that night. Calvin went to sleep with the taste of Morgan still on his lips.
Chapter 9
“Morgan’s on a business call Calvin,” Molly said pleasantly from her seat behind her desk.
“Oh… well I sort of have an emergency,” Calvin told her. “Do you know when she’ll be done?”
“I can’t say.”
“I’ll wait for her then.”
“She might take a while.”
“How long can a business call go on for?”
Molly looked uncertain. “I’ll just go and check on her.”
Molly disappeared into Morgan’s office, leaving Calvin staring at the walls. When she finally reappeared she looked slightly uncomfortable.
“Morgan asked if you could come back on Monday.”
“I… no. I need to see her today.”
“But—”
“Right now,” Calvin insisted. “I’m not leaving here till she speaks to me.”
Molly regarded him awkwardly and then seeing that he wasn’t kidding, she went back into Morgan’s office. Calvin knew that their kiss last night had probably crossed the professional boundaries that Morgan no doubt set for herself, but he was willing to look past it if she was. They were adults, and they could handle it in a mature way.
“All right Calvin,” Molly said, coming out again and holding the door open for him. “You can go on in.”
Calvin went in gratefully and Molly closed the door behind him. Morgan was sitting behind her desk. The expression she wore was hard to read, but Calvin sensed that she felt a little unsettled after last night. He knew he did.
“Molly said you had an emergency?” Morgan asked, her voice sounded stiff and formal.
“Morgan, were you trying to avoid me?” Calvin asked directly.
Her mouth twitched slightly, but she held her expression in place. “I’m sorry about the kiss last night,” she said. “I thought it was the best way to show you—”
“I know,” Calvin said cutting her off. “Don’t worry about it. It was the perfect way to teach me.”
Morgan looked slightly surprised. “You thought I was trying to teach you?”
“Yes,” Calvin replied. “For my date with Sasha.”
“Of course,” Morgan replied coolly, feeling that gut-wrenching twist in her stomach. “Of course.”
“Well my date is tonight,” Calvin said. “And I just remembered, she wants to go dancing tonight after dinner.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know how to dance.”
“Oh.”
“I need you to teach me.”
Morgan looked at her desk, trying to buy herself time to think up an excuse. “I’m a little busy today.”
Calvin stared at her incredulously, “I can’t believe you’re turning me away in my hour of need. I need you Morgan. You know how much I want this date to go well.”
Morgan nodded at the ground, “I do.”
“Then help me, please!”
“Okay,” she breathed. “I’ll help you. There’s a dance studio just across the street from here. Meet me there in half an hour.”
“Why can’t we just go together now?”
“I have some things to move around first.”
“All right, I’ll see you soon then.”
Calvin turned and left. Morgan sank into her chair. She had thought that their kiss had meant as much to Calvin as it had meant to her. She thought he might have come here to tell her that he had feelings for her. She had allowed her juvenile fantasies to get the better of her. Angry at herself for being so naïve, she shook the hope from her head and straightened up. It was time she finished this job, so that she could get back to her life. She grabbed her coat and bag and headed out of her office.
The dance studio was run by another one of her acquaintances. Morgan had cultivated several relationships with different business proprietors close to her office, so that she could make use of lower rates when she brought her clients in. Calvin was sitting in the waiting room when Morgan walked in. She went up to Marjorie, the head dance instructor there.
“Hi Marge,” Morgan greeted her. “I need an hour or so in an empty dance studio.”
“No problem Morgan,” Marge replied. “A smaller space is fine?”
“Perfect.”
“Room B fourteen is free.”
“Great,” Morgan said. “Thanks Marge.”
“Anytime!” she said sweetly.
Morgan saw Calvin walk in the door and gestured for him to follow her. They made their way to a generous little room that was surrounded by mirrors. Morgan noticed Calvin’s look of complete intimidation.
“I take it you don’t dance very often,” she said trying to keep her tone as casual and normal she could manage under the circumstances.
“I don’t dance at all,” Calvin admitted, beginning to sweat.
“Everyone dances a little bit,” Morgan said. “Even if it is on their own.”
“Not me,” Calvin shook his head firmly. “I’ve never moved this body to music.”
Morgan couldn’t help but smile at that one. “Why did you agree to dancing then?” she asked, “If you were so uncomfortable with it.”
“Sasha really wanted to go dancing,” Calvin explained. “And I wasn’t about to let her down.”
Morgan turned away from him, “Well she’s a lucky woman.”
Calvin smiled, “And I’m a lucky man, to have someone like you for a teacher.”
For some reason, Morgan found that his compliments actually hurt. She brushed aside her feelings and concentrated on the task at hand. There was a sound system beside the entrance door. Morgan walked over and looked through the list of CDs on display. She chose a romantic instrumental and put it in, adjusted the volume, and then hit play. Then she walked over to where Calvin stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets.
“All right,” Morgan said. “Put your arms around me.”
Calvin did as he was told, but he knew instinctively that he was doing it all wrong.
“Calvin,” Morgan said slowly. “You need to act like you want me close to you. Put your arm around my waist and draw me in close to your body.”
Calvin gulped self-consciously and did as Morgan had instructed. With one hand circled around her small waist, he pulled her close up against him, his other hand clasped hers tightly. Suddenly, his hand slipped out from beneath hers.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I have sweaty palms.”
“I’ve noticed,” Morgan said, picking out a tissue from her shirt pocket and handing it to him. “Nervous habit?”
“Yes,” Calvin admitted. “It started happening more frequently when I hit my teens.”
“Lots of people have it,” Morgan said comfortingly. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about it Calvin. It happens to me too.”
“It does not,” he said incredulously as a small smile curved on his face.
Morgan smiled, “It’s true. It happens when I get nervous.”
“You get nervous?” His eyes widened in surprise.
“More often than you would imagine.”
“I guess that’s comforting to know,” Calvin said. “I should probably go and wash my hands.”
“Don’t be silly,” Morgan said firmly. “Come here.”
“My hands are still really sweaty.”
“I don’t mind a little sweat,” she said co
nvincingly.
Calvin took her outstretched hand and repeated the movement she had instructed him to follow. As she entered the circle of his arms, Calvin felt a strange tug, almost as though he felt he needed to protect Morgan. It almost felt testosterone fuelled. He looked down at her. Her eyes were bright and beautiful, and they looked up at him without expression. Morgan was careful about how she behaved around Calvin now, she would not let her feelings for him show. She just had to endure this a little while longer and then she could lick her wounds and move on.
A reckless thought entered her head suddenly, as his arms encircled her waist more tightly. She wondered if she should simply tell him the truth about how she really felt. She wondered how he would react if she admitted that she had strong feelings for him and that she wished he would simply forget about Sasha and give her a chance.
“I hope I don’t embarrass myself tonight,” Calvin’s voice cut into her thoughts. “I really want to impress Sasha.”
Morgan cast her eyes away from his face, abandoning her reckless impulse. He would never be able to give her a real chance as long as his thoughts were consumed with another woman.
“You won’t,” Morgan managed to say. “Just be yourself. How can she not fall for you?”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
Calvin gave her a huge grin. They spent the next hour going through all the possible dances that might come up that night. Morgan was patient and instructive, but it cost her a lot to continue to be that way with him. She was aware of the irony of the situation. The fact that she was coaching the man she had feelings for on the best way to keep another woman’s attention.
Calvin listened carefully to all Morgan’s advice; his thoughts were preoccupied with images of Sasha. He tried to imagine dancing with her, but somehow he didn’t seem to be able to do it with Morgan in his arms. She fit there perfectly, and they moved together seamlessly. Calvin almost started to believe that dancing was not as hard as he had originally thought. By the end of the hour, Calvin realized with a start, that he was really enjoying himself.
“As it turns out,” Morgan assessed, “You’re a natural.”
“I owe it all to my teacher,” Calvin said again with a big smile for her.
They stopped moving and came to a standstill in the middle of the room. Their eyes were locked together, both of them found it hard to break the slightly unsettling eye contact that they had. Both were aware of each other’s arms intertwined, the heat of their bodies, and the slightly elevated breathing.
