by Joan Arling
I watched her reflection dwindle in the mirrors, a lump in my throat. Take good care of yourself, Rita. There be wolves out there.
* * *
The passenger seat wasn’t simply unoccupied; it was void. Without Rita by my side, the cabin seemed somehow glum, and the music from my CD collection grated on my nerves. I’d taken along one more hiker, but we had hardly spoken during the time he was with me. Nice young man, a student of psychology, who applied what he studied with a Teddy bear sticking out of his backpack. When he got out in Bari, I think he was glad to get away from this taciturn driver.
Have I mentioned that I hated my job?
Rita told me that she had opted to take the train to Rome and spend the remainder of her vacation there, visiting galleries and museums. She said that hitch-hiking just didn’t feel right without her favourite chauffeur, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow the horror stories about what could happen to lady hikers had been on my mind, lately.
At a truck stop I bought mock license plates bearing “Rita” and “Stella” in black letters, which I fixed behind the windshield in front of our seats. Silly? No, that seat was Rita’s by rights, hers even if she wasn’t there to use it. I took a photo of Tiny’s redecorated front and sent it to her by email. “I have reserved a seat for you.” I could still hear her laughter after I’d mentioned the old joke to her.
“Don’t you dare cancel,” was her reply.
We kept talking with each other, both by email and by mobile, but it was awkward at times. We both needed to stay in contact, but what did you talk about when you were living such different lives? Like, when I’d crept out of the cabin one morning, I had spied a mother roe with her fawn through the fog, and, sure, I’d told Rita about it. But it just wasn’t the same as pointing out the sight to her and watching rapture spread across her face. And then, these things worth telling were rare―I guess, that’s part of what made them remarkable. Well, you might bitch about a traffic congestion when you’re caught up in it together, but “Honey, you can’t imagine how traffic was today”? That gets old, fast.
I had been living on that diet of mail and mobile for almost five months, except for one glorious night, when I’d been in the vicinity of her place, but the good-bye in the morning had almost torn me in two.
* * *
The ring tone for Rita’s number chimed.
“Hello, love!”
“You pass by Hanover in the foreseeable future? I’m in bad need of another vacation, and I seem to remember a reservation. Or two.” She laughed wickedly.
My heart took a leap. “As soon as I can. Let me check what bids are out there, and I’ll get back to you. Jeez, I could jump with joy! You sure you can do this?”
“Hey, I’m freelance, remember? Of course I can. And I have a surprise for you I’m not willing to wait with much longer.”
“A surprise for me? Oh, do tell, please, pretty please!”
“Nope, you can wait as well as I had to.”
“Pleeeaase!”
She laughed at my petulant voice. “Now be a good girl, or you’ll get a spanking from Mama.”
I chuckled. “And from where’d you get the four orderlies to hold me down?”
“Would you fight?” Her voice sounded like silk ruffled by wind.
Oops. “No, ma’am.”
“Good. Now see that you get yourself here, at the double! That’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It still took almost three weeks for me to get a long trip organised that also led me by her home. Talk about walking on embers, barefoot. Then early one Friday morning I pulled a trailer from the port of Hanstholm, Denmark, and started on the roughly four hundred miles to Hanover. Ten hours later, I was still seventy miles away from Rita’s home, but I couldn’t bear the thought of being brought up so close to her, so I sent up a short prayer that I wouldn’t get pulled out for the next two hours. Seemed to help, too.
I pulled up in the smallish street before her house around eight in the evening. I guessed that the sight of the truck, as well as of the lady emerging from it, might be the talk of the neighbourhood for some time, but I had little time to dwell on that, because I was suddenly hit by a blonde lightning.
We didn’t talk much that night. But we, ah, communicated plenty.
Oh, it felt so good to be waking up beside my love. Or under, rather, because, as seemed to be her disposition, she had me pinned down good, and I, well ... I took a deep breath of her scent, then started to disentangle myself, waking her in the process.
“Bathroom still where it was last time?”
She giggled. “Of course, you goof. But your presence here is required when you’re done there.”
“We’re going places, you forgot?”
“Nope. Okay then.”
She joined me in the shower with a look of determination, and when she ducked out before me, I was left reeling and trying to catch my breath. I got out a few minutes later, dressed, then followed her into her kitchen.
“Eh voilà.”
Ham and eggs, fried mushrooms, toast, baked tomato, beans―the lot!
“I’m afraid I have no sausages, though.”
“An English breakfast? Now that’s what I call a surprise. Can I book this place permanently?”
“Uh-oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” She giggled nervously.
I raised my eyebrows, but all I got was a cryptic “All will be revealed―shortly.”
Finally, after a wait that had seemed endless, she rightfully reclaimed her place in Tiny.
I negotiated the truck out of town onto the A7, but we had barely passed Hildesheim when she said, “Would you pull over at the next roadhouse?”
“No problem, mate.” I tried to imitate a Crocodile-Dundee accent but did not succeed in lightening the somewhat tense atmosphere. I wondered what was on her mind. I even started to worry a little. Oh heck, she would not take the start of our reunion to tell me that she’d had enough of the boring trucker lady. Or that our lives were just too incompatible. Or would she?
I pulled out of the traffic and shut Tiny down. “What is it, love?”
She swallowed a few times, and then she began in a very small voice. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for quite some time. Literally. I would envision having you guess what my surprise for you is and laugh because you never had a chance. In my dreams you’d be speechless with joy ... And now, at the moment of truth, I am scared spitless. Scared that you might not want this.”
Tears started down her cheeks, and I brushed them away with my thumbs.
“Hey, you’re my love, and whatever it is that you got me, I will take pride in it.” My voice broke. “I love you. Can’t you get that through your head?”
She fumbled around in her pocket, then handed me a plastic card.
I looked at it stupidly. It was her driving license. I looked at her face and found her eyes screwed tightly shut. Looking back at that piece of plastic, I noticed that all the entries for heavy vehicles were ticked, trailers and all. The blood drained from my face. Did that mean that she ...? The license card slipped from my fingers.
When I came to, she was bent over me.
“Stella! Stella, for God’s sake, wake up! For heaven’s sake, I did not want to hurt you. Come on, darling, just tell me to get out and forget me. I knew, I just knew I should not have ...”
So, what would you do when the most desirable woman in the entire world hovered frantically inches above your face? I did the sensible thing, the only thing.
When we broke from the kiss, I croaked, “Get out, will ya? We need to swap places. I sure am in no condition to drive.”
It took a few days to sink in. All things considered, my job could be worse.
###
Author’s Note: Giacomo, Catherine, Jamie, and Ryan are from Susan X. Meagher’s I Found My Heart in San Francisco. But everybody knows that, right?
Thanks to “Little Sister” for that bit of Italian language, of which I don’
t understand a word.
Some stories by Insane Englishwoman can be found at http://www.e-scribblers.com/insanebrit. Highly recommended reading.
Finally, a very special thanks to my editor for mercilessly hunting weaknesses in my story. If you enjoyed it, half the credit is hers. Any remaining faults are, of course, mine.
Seduction for Beginners
Jae
Annie clicked her pen on and off and stared down at her notebook. She had been sitting at her desk for the past hour, trying to come up with a plan, and yet the page was still empty. Groaning, she picked up the stress ball from the edge of her desk and kneaded it in her left hand. Why hadn’t anyone ever written a book on how to seduce your girlfriend?
Hmm, maybe someone has. She nudged the mouse on her desk, and her computer monitor sprang to life. A quick search on Amazon produced a list of books with titles such as How to Use Hypnosis to Seduce Women and The Foolproof Guide to Picking up Hot Chicks.
Annie shook her head. She didn’t want instructions on how to lure dozens of women into her bed. What she needed was a little help with wining, dining, and seducing one specific woman—her girlfriend, Drew.
Well, she had the wining and dining part down pat. Annie thumbed through the pages of her notebook that listed her plans for Valentine’s Day. First, they would have dinner at an expensive restaurant overlooking the ocean and watch the sun set while sipping on a glass of Drew’s wine. Afterwards, they would stroll along the beach before they returned to the cozy bed-and-breakfast where she had booked a room.
That was where the problems started. They had shared some heated kisses, but Annie had no experiences beyond that. At least not with women.
Annie knew Drew wouldn’t make the first move even though she was the more experienced one. From the moment they had first gotten together twelve weeks ago, Drew had always made sure not to pressure Annie when it came to their physical relationship. She had let Annie initiate their first real kiss, and now it would have to be Annie who introduced lovemaking into their relationship.
She sighed. Sometimes, having a considerate girlfriend was a pain in the ass.
Half an hour later, Annie was still staring at a blank page. She threw the stress ball against the wall and watched it ricochet across the room. “Argh!” The more she thought about her seduction plans, the more she started to panic. She wanted the first time between her and Drew to be perfect, a night that neither of them would ever forget. Valentine’s Day seemed ideal for that, so she had convinced Drew not to prepare any Valentine’s surprises and let her plan a romantic evening instead. On paper, everything looked good. But no matter how much she planned, it wouldn’t change her own inadequacy. Drew deserves a lover who knows what she’s doing, not just the bumbling attentions of a nervous nerd.
She closed her notebook, stood, and started to pace through her bedroom.
If only she knew how to make that first move, then maybe everything else would fall into place.
Too bad she didn’t have a best friend she could call for advice. Drew was her best friend, but she couldn’t ask her about this.
Maybe Jake would know. She stopped pacing. Yes. Her brother was the quintessential ladies’ man, a Casanova who had seduced so many women that he would have needed a spreadsheet to keep track. If anyone knew how to let Drew know she was ready for more, it would be Jake.
She reached for the phone and speed-dialed his cell, hoping he wouldn’t make fun of her.
“Yeah?” Jake sounded out of breath.
Annie frowned. “Hi. It’s me. Annie. Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“No, I’m just halfway up the rock-climbing wall right now.”
“You picked up your phone while you’re hanging from a rock-climbing wall?” Annie rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll make it quick, then.” Her cheeks were already glowing with embarrassment, so she didn’t want to prolong this conversation anyway. “What would a woman need to do to ... um ... seduce you?”
“Walk up to me and strip,” Jake said without hesitation. “Why? Know anyone who’s interested?”
Annie groaned. Obviously, Jake wasn’t a good point of reference. Seducing Drew would need to be a little more subtle. “No.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Forget the question. Let’s say ... let’s say you’ve been with a woman for a while. And everything’s going great, but you haven’t had ... you know.”
A whirring and then a thumping sound indicated that Jake was back on the ground. He chuckled. “Sex, Annie. You’re thirty years old, and you still can’t say sex?”
“Of course I can say it.” Saying it wasn’t the problem, though. Annie gritted her teeth. Maybe calling Jake hadn’t been such a bright idea, but for Drew’s sake, she was determined to get some information out of him. “Sex. There. I said it. S-E-X. Happy now?”
Jake laughed. “Yep. Okay, so me and my imaginary girlfriend haven’t been doing the horizontal mambo. Why not? She’s not ugly as sin, is she?”
“No! She’s beautiful.” Most people didn’t consider Drew a conventional beauty. Her nose and jaw were a bit too strong and her build too stocky, but Annie considered every inch of her attractive.
“Then why wait?” Jake asked.
“Well, because ... because ...” Annie dropped onto her desk chair and huffed out a breath. “Because it isn’t just a one-night stand, and you want to get it right.”
“What’s there to get right? It’s sex, Annie, not rocket science. You just insert tab A into slot B and—”
“Eww.” Annie nearly dropped the phone when she attempted to cover her ears. “Spare me the Ikea sex instructions, please.”
“Okay, okay. So what was the question again?”
Annie hesitated. She shook her head at herself. Asking Jake of all people for advice ... what was I thinking? “You know what? Forget it. It’s not important.”
“Aww, just when it was getting interesting,” Jake said, his tone teasing.
Not in the mood for silly jokes, Annie said nothing.
Metal clinked on the other end of the line. Then Jake cleared his throat. “You’re not just asking because you’re curious about my spectacular adventures in the bedroom, are you? Oh, shit, Annie. Tell me this isn’t about you and Drew.”
Again, Annie remained silent.
“So the two of you haven’t ...?” Now it was Jake who couldn’t say the word. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know the details of my sister’s sex life.”
That’s the problem. There is no sex life. Her whole life, she had been the one to give advice to her brother. Not that he ever followed it. But still. She swallowed her pride. “I wouldn’t ask you, but I really don’t know how to approach this.”
Silence filtered through the line, interrupted only by Jake’s breathing. It sounded as if he was close to hyperventilating. “Um, but you’re not ...? I mean, you have ...? You had sex before, right?”
“Yes,” Annie said, ignoring the heat creeping up her neck. “But this is different.” Her previous experiences really didn’t prepare her for her plans on Valentine’s Day.
“Why? Because Drew is a woman?”
“No. Yes. It’s part of it, but ... Before, it never mattered so much.” Sex had never been all that important to her. A part of life that was pleasant, but nothing to get too excited about. She had never wasted much thought on how to please her partner. If sex hadn’t been perfect, so what? Ever-lasting love, butterflies in your stomach, and perfect sex existed only in romance novels. Or so Annie had thought. Until she’d met Drew.
“Christ, relax, will you? If you put so much pressure on yourself, you’re setting yourself up to fail.”
“Thank you very much,” Annie said. “That kind of encouragement is exactly what I need to hear.”
Jake sighed. “Like you said, sex isn’t like assembling furniture. When the time comes, you’ll figure out the mechanics. Don’t worry. I’m sure Drew will tell you exactly what to do to curl her toes.”
Maybe he was right. Drew w
ould gently guide her, as she had with everything else. “But how do I let Drew know that I want ... you know?” Great. Now I’m back to avoiding the word.
“Easy,” Jake said. “You just tell her. It’s totally hot when a woman leans over to me during dinner and tells me exactly what she wants to do to me after dessert.”
Easy? No. Nothing about it was easy. Annie rubbed her face with her free hand as she imagined walking up to Drew and telling her she wanted to have sex. Oh, God. No. “I can’t do that.”
“If you can’t say it face-to-face, how about a sizzling text message?” Jake asked. “Last time I got one of those, I left a football evening with the boys faster than you can say cunnilingus.”
Annie wrinkled her nose. What was she supposed to write? Want to get naked and sweaty with me? “No, thanks. I don’t think that’s my style either.”
“Then lose the accountant look and put on something sexy. Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words. If you show up in a mini-skirt, stilettos, and sexy underwear, Drew will know what’s up.”
“I don’t know, Jake.”
Jake let out a long groan. “God, you women are complicated! You can do my taxes with your eyes closed, but you can’t figure out how to let your girlfriend know you want to sleep with her?”
A male voice called Jake’s name.
“I have to go. My next class starts in five minutes,” Jake said. “Stop obsessing about this and just relax.”
Then there was a click and after that only silence.
Annie laid down the phone and twirled around and around on her desk chair until the world started to blur.
* * *
“Am I allowed to look now?” Drew asked as Annie led her along the wooden boardwalk.
“No,” Annie said. “Keep your eyes closed for a little longer.” She wanted the evening to be a surprise for Drew. Hopefully a pleasant one.
“I think I know where we are anyway. I can hear the ocean.”
Annie glanced down at the waves that washed over the pebbles at the beach, making them sparkle like jewels. “If we are where you think we are—and I’m not denying or confirming it—would it be a good choice for our Valentine’s Day date?”
