by Jean Stone
She fanned her face with her hand.
The table was high and layered with thick towels.
“You may undress if you want.” He had big white teeth that flashed when he smiled and looked almost fluorescent against his tanned skin.
“‘Undress’?” Elaine asked. Her voice sounded tiny, as if it had come from a wind chime in a small breeze, not from her.
He smiled again. “Leave on as much as makes you comfortable. Many of my clients remove all their clothes. You can cover your essentials with a towel, don’t worry.”
She smiled back because she didn’t know what else to do.
“I’ll leave you to undress,” he said. “When you’re ready, get up on the table, facedown, on your stomach.” He handed her a towel she assumed was to cover her “essentials.” Then he left the small room.
Elaine was glad the lights were low. She stood there a moment, a long way from Saratoga, a long way from Martin or Lloyd. She inhaled the air, which seemed inordinately clean. She eyed a waterfall in the corner that gently cascaded over copper and stones. Somewhere in the ceiling, soft music played, Yo-Yo Ma, maybe.
She shivered a little, then took off her new silk pajamas, lounge suit, whatever Lily had called it. She hesitated a moment, then unclasped her bra. She began to slide out of her panties, but stopped. She stared down at them, at the white cotton briefs she supposed she’d have to trade in at some point for silky, pastel French-cut panties, maybe even a thong.
A thong? Were salesclerks allowed to sell thongs to anyone over forty?
She ran her hands over the small lumps and bumps safely ensconced beneath the forgiving cotton. She laughed at herself, knowing it would be best if she stayed with the briefs. It wasn’t as if anyone would know.
Except, of course, Gunter. Because there was no way Elaine could have a massage without underpants.
Folding her new outfit, she stacked it onto a chair. She tucked her bra between the bottoms and the top, where Gunter wouldn’t see the white cotton cups. As she climbed onto the table she noticed her nipples were hard. She hesitated a moment, then touched them lightly. She circled one tip with her forefinger, then the other. Rock solid, they were. It must be cold in the room. Yes, that was it, it was definitely chilly. It could not possibly be that her nipples had risen to the thrill of undressing in public—well, almost in public—for a muscle-bound, darkly tanned stranger.
A shiver of anticipation traveled to her “essentials.”
She groaned a little groan and resisted the urge to touch herself more, to rub her taut nipples, to bring her hand down to the warmth that now swelled inside her.
Instead, Elaine shook her head, flopped onto her stomach, and tugged at the towel, hoping it covered her back and her butt. Hoping it covered that unwanted need that had only ever spelled trouble for Elaine McNulty Thomas, first with Lloyd, then with Martin, because she’d loved both of their touches so much.
Gunter returned and she regained her focus. “All set?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and said yes, she was ready.
And then Gunter’s big hands sank into her shoulders. She almost cried out at his unexpected strength.
“Oh,” he said, “you’re very tight.”
Tight. Oh. Yes.
He lifted his hands. “I’ll get the oil.”
She opened her eyes. Was the room darker? She heard him rub his big hands together. She tried to command her nipples to return to a state of limp disinterest.
Then his fingers returned to her shoulders.
Her eyes closed again.
Deeply, tenderly, Gunter kneaded her muscles. Slowly, he stretched the length of her arms, loosening every muscle, every piece of tissue, every inch of her skin. Then he moved down her back, caressing her shoulder blades, massaging that small spot that curved under the bone.
The room was not cold. In fact, it grew warmer and warmer with each stroke of his hands.
She wanted to cry out. She wanted to cry out for how long it had been since she’d been touched by a man, by Lloyd or by Martin.
Not that sex with Lloyd had been very plentiful those last several years. But they’d had plenty early on. He had a big, happy penis that seemed engorged most of the time. The hormones of youth, she’d thought much later. But time and familiarity had interrupted their frequency, and maybe they both had become a little bit bored.
Then came Martin. It had been years since Elaine had felt passion, real, roll-in-the-hay sex that unleashed all kinds of good stuff.
Yes, Lily, Martin had been good.
Sometimes he’d been too good. Once, he’d wanted to perform oral sex. On her. Of all people. She had resisted because that seemed such an intimate act, to be shared only between husband and wife.
What a fool she had been. Because if Gunter suggested doing that right now, she would not stop him, no way, no how. No “I Do” involved.
Oooh.
Aaah.
All the way down her back, Gunter kept kneading. So gently. So firmly.
She wondered where the towel had gone. Not that it mattered.
Oooh.
Aaah.
And then, he touched the arc of her butt.
He pushed down her panties, her white cotton comfort. He began on the right cheek, stroking the large muscle, tracing its path from her waist to her thigh. Again. And again.
Her legs parted slightly, involuntarily.
Had he noticed?
He moved to the left cheek. He repeated the process.
Then—oh, God!—he took both cheeks in his hands. Without hesitation, Elaine arched her butt. Tenderly, tenderly, yet oh, so firmly, he . . .
Jesus Christ, she almost shouted as the first throes of an orgasm threatened to shudder all through her.
She sucked in a sharp breath. Then, without pausing for one more racing, out-of-control heartbeat, Elaine scooted from under his hands, clutched the towel against her, and leapt from the table. She grabbed her neat pile of clothes from the chair, stuttered “Thank you, I must go now,” then hurriedly flew from the room.
7
They could have had sex right there in the elevator.
After two glasses of wine, sesame chicken that she barely touched, and fried ice cream that they shared with one spoon, Jo could have had sex between the third and fourth floors.
She’d never had sex on the first date, but that wouldn’t stop her. Jack Allen was frustratingly tempting, with his small crooked smile and a way of holding his eyes on hers just a little too long, as if he were exploring her down to her toes.
She lost all perspective about being on the rebound, or about having been without a man for too long.
She forgot that she didn’t know him.
She leaned against the wall. He held his fingers to her mouth. He traced her lips, her cheeks, her eyes.
“I have to go,” he said. “I’ll call you when I get back from Brussels. Maybe then we can plan that weekend together.”
Then his mouth was on hers, and hers was on his, and the elevator doors opened and it was over that fast.
She meant to ask how long he’d be gone, but in the heat and the madness, she forgot.
8
Word had already leaked out about the Benson nuptials. Well, not leaked, exactly, more like had been spread with the speed of an e-mail, thanks to Andrew’s carefully planted hints at Ted and Marion’s wedding.
“New Year’s Eve,” Andrew had whispered to local business owners of the florist shop, the restaurants, a string of bed-and-breakfasts. “It’s going to be small, but it will be spectacular.”
Buzz, buzz.
“Best of all, it’s going to attract national media attention to the Berkshires.”
Buzz, buzz, speaking of which, too bad he couldn’t mention it in his column, too. Someone, however, might add up the buzzes and figure out that Olivia, Eileen, Sadie, and Jacquelin of his “Real Women” column were really Lily, Elaine, Sarah, and Jo, and that A.K. was really him.
When h
e walked in to Second Chances Monday morning, Jo was already hard at work. She seemed happy, immersed. He decided not to ask how her date went last night; he didn’t really want to know.
He set his leather briefcase, which held his laptop, on the desk that he’d come to call his own. It was placed across from Jo’s, a position that often was distracting. “Good morning,” he said. “Busy so early?”
Jo laughed. She brushed back a shock of taupe-colored hair and blinked her green eyes. She wore a soft pastel sweater the color of beach grass or seafoam or one of those earthy colors that made her eyes look more seductive, as if they weren’t seductive enough. Yes, she was happy.
He yanked out his laptop, shoved his briefcase in a drawer.
“There must have been thirty messages on our voice mail this morning,” Jo said. “All kinds of businesses offering their services.”
Well, at least he’d done that right. That, and the fact that he had sort of blackmailed John Benson into the wedding-vow renewal in the first place. (“Let’s put it this way, John,” Andrew had said, “either agree to do it, or I’m finished with the column. These women need a break to get their business off the ground.”) He hadn’t had to add that it was his fault—correction, it had been both their greedy faults—that he and John had surreptitiously extinguished the one good promotional idea the women had come up with, because it was too risky: It could have blown Andrew’s cover and cost tens of thousands of dollars in magazine-ad revenues.
He unzipped his jacket and dropped it onto the chair. “It’s about time we got noticed.”
“Noticed isn’t the word. It’s sort of like when the Beatles came to America.”
He smiled. “You’re too young to remember that.”
“I’m aging quickly. And Lily called to say it’s just the two of us this week.” She looked so damned pretty, he was tempted to flirt. But then the phone rang. Just as well, he supposed.
While Jo took the call, he attacked last week’s paperwork with more vigor than necessary. Jo hung up and said, “That’s the fifth bed-and-breakfast that wants us to see their rooms.”
“We might need them all. Two hundred guests. Probably five hundred journalists and their entourages. Every available bedroom from here to the New York State line will be scrambling for a piece of the media pie.” He laughed. She laughed. Laughter made her eyes sparkle all the more. He cleared his throat. “Any ideas for the venue?”
“Actually, yes. We had a call from The Stone Castle. It’s a beautiful place north of town. Do you know it?”
It was the location for a summer theater: Andrew had heard of it, but had never been there.
“Well,” Jo continued, “it’s an old Scottish castle, and John Benson is Scottish. I’m sure Lily will think it appropriate.”
So Jo had been doing her homework, looking for something unique and special. Something Sunday Times style section appropriate. Then she added, “They offered us lunch, to check the place out.”
Lunch. With Jo. “As it happens,” he said with a grin, “I am free.”
It was known simply as The Stone Castle, which boasted thirty guest rooms and a grand ballroom and had been built in the 1800s for Lord Aitken and his bride. Reconstructed with the original stone and wood beams sent by clipper ship from the Scottish Highlands, the castle’s turrets and winding staircases sounded like a perfect setting for the winter celebration. The fact that Lady Aitken had caught pneumonia while crossing the Atlantic added to the glamour and mystique, because the poor thing had died not long after arriving in the Berkshires, and rumor had it she still haunted the halls.
When Jo was young it had still been a private home, which hadn’t stopped her and her friends from sneaking onto the grounds more than once, trying to peek in the windows and catch a glimpse of life inside, maybe even of the lady herself.
When Jo was in the seventh grade, half of her class went there at Halloween, hoping to have “the bejesus scared out of them,” her grandfather had warned. But the lights were off and no one answered the door.
Owned now by Dave and Martha Holland, the castle was advertised as a respite extraordinaire. It had been featured in travel magazines not only for its charm but also because many who spent the night confirmed seeing a mystical presence, a woman dressed for walking through the countryside in a long cloak and a bonnet.
Unlike Lady Aitken, Martha Holland greeted them in Yuppie tartan pants and a crewneck sweater that had no doubt come from Talbots.
The place was exquisite.
Jo held her breath as they softly walked through the long, cool stone corridor into the enormous ballroom that had been recently renovated. The room had a thirty-foot buttressed ceiling with freshly gilded cornices and a full wall of tall stained-glass windows. Across from that was another windowed wall, this one offering a sweeping view of the lawn that sloped down to the lake. From there Jo could see two rowboats tied to a rustic old dock. They sat on still water against a backdrop of leaves that were orange and yellow and red: It could have been a canvas, painted artfully in oil.
“Lovely,” Jo whispered, as if it were a dream and could suddenly vanish.
“The fireplace can be lit and monitored by two tenders,” Martha said.
Jo turned from the view to the giant granite fireplace that three people could stand up in. Next to it several sets of full-body armor stood at attention, ready for battle. She thought of her long-ago elementary school classmates: None of them could have imagined the exotic world within.
“Look,” Andrew said. “Balconies.”
Heads turned upward. Jo thought of Romeo and Juliet. King Arthur and Guinevere. “How romantic,” she said. “It’s perfect for a wedding.” Not for the first time since they’d opened the business, her thoughts lingered for a moment on the fact that she’d never had a wedding of her own. She wondered if that might change, now that a new man was on the brink of entering her life. A small wave of anticipation rushed through her.
“Castles were like cities,” Martha was explaining to Andrew.
With reluctance, Jo pulled her attention back to her job.
“Whole communities evolved inside,” Martha said. “They weren’t just living quarters. They housed doctors, weavers, potters, and God-knows-who-or-what else. They needed spacious rooms because they were self-sufficient.”
“Self-sufficient enough for a wedding,” Jo said. “I think it has possibilities. Do you agree, Andrew, that the Bensons might love it?”
“I’d put it at the top of the list,” he said. “When is Mrs. Benson coming to review the arrangements?”
“In a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we can e-mail her information and talk on the phone. She said she’ll trust our judgment.”
“Well,” he said, “there you have it.”
“If you’d like to see the rooms, we can do that now,” Martha said. “Then we can have lunch and talk about our services.”
Martha led them from the ballroom while Jo fell into step beside Andrew, as if they were there to plan their very own wedding, as if she were the blushing bride, as if he was Jack Allen, the handsome groom.
9
Crunch. Crunch.
The leaves under her feet crunched the way leaves were supposed to when it was New England and it was October.
Elaine forced her chin up and marched behind a woman in front of her on the afternoon nature walk around Laurel Lake. Every footprint was a familiar—too familiar—reminder that she’d been there before, back in her Lloyd-life. The path, however, was well-tended now, the scraggly bushes and sprawling undergrowth had been groomed and landscaped from the boat docks to the ice house, her once-coveted ice house.
With a sliver of a smile, she wondered if the woman in front of her could possibly know the things the woman behind her had done right there. She couldn’t, of course, which made Elaine’s secret seem somehow delicious. She might not be one of them—not yet—but she had a few talents of her own.
She breathed in the crisp air and tasted the aro
mas of acorns and oaks and autumn. Her father used to say, “a pinch of autumn in every pot,” while making his chestnut stuffing or his acorn-squash bisque.
Last night, she’d thought about leaving.
After returning to her room, she’d flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling and wondered what on earth she thought she was doing, trying to be a woman she clearly was not.
An orgasm?
With a stranger?
In private, she’d groaned many groans at her near-miss. Surely she’d have to leave Laurel Lake. But what would she tell Lily? If she stayed, she might run into Gunter. Which choice would be worse? Elaine barely let herself have orgasms in her own bed, in her own home. Not because she feared getting caught, just because it didn’t seem right. Small-town upbringing, old-town beliefs, which didn’t include masturbation on the list of what a housewife and mom from West Hope should do with her free time.
Not that anyone still thought those kinds of things. It was just one more example of how the world had changed and somehow had left her behind.
All of which Elaine reminded herself over and over, and why she’d ultimately decided not to leave Laurel Lake. If she ran into Gunter she was determined to smile. She would give no excuses about escaping his clutches; if it had happened to Lily, Lily wouldn’t have apologized, not that Lily would have ever found herself in such a precarious situation.
So, Elaine had Pilates that morning, followed by meditation and a soy protein shake for her lunch. And now she was walking, like everyone else.
Crunch. Crunch.
“An eagle!” their leader exclaimed, as one hand shot upward to the top of a cluster of nearly naked birch trees.
The necks of the dozen morning walkers swiveled to take in the sight, just as the wings spread and flapped and the giant bird soared to another part of the lake.
