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‘Yes.’
‘I’ll take care of you. You can write full-time.’
‘I want that so much.’
He began touching me again. ‘Our bodies are perfect together,’ he said. ‘Your breasts are so round and full.’
‘I know.’ I was mesmerised by his desire for me.
‘Oh, my God, please,’ I said. ‘Please. Please make love to my tits. They’re yours. Yours. Oh, please. Please.’
And then he was kissing them, sucking them. ‘Oh, my God,’ he cried. ‘I have to fuck you again.’
This time we faced each other while lying on our sides. He stared into my eyes. Then he kissed me so passionately I could barely breathe, and slipped himself into my pussy. He didn’t stop kissing me. Our mouths remained locked until his breath became more irregular as his climax travelled through his body. He moaned into my mouth as he came.
We lay there, both spent.
And then it was my turn. I still needed more, needed to let HIM know how much I loved his cock. It was so beautiful. It gave me such pleasure. If he could only know what it felt like to see HIM walking toward me with his cock erect and eager to be inside me. If he only knew how much I thought about his cock when we were not together.
I hovered over HIM. Time was suspended as I made sweet love to his cock, first kissing the head of it, small little kisses. Then I brought it into my mouth and circled my tongue around it. He began to move, pushing his cock further inside my mouth. I gasped. I moved my position so I could lick his balls, taking one ball into my mouth, then the other. I brought my tongue back up and over the shaft. And then he gently pulled me up into a sitting position. He stood up, holding his cock with his hand, and began masturbating. I sat transfixed by HIM. I could see that he was about to climax; his body went rigid and he emitted a low moan. I opened my mouth and swallowed his come. Then we collapsed together on the couch and held on to each other. We fell asleep wrapped in one another.
He left in the middle of the night. I didn’t wake up.
5 (#ulink_cfd37db2-2399-5085-8333-013aba9157c2)
Best friends and abandoned cats … (#ulink_cfd37db2-2399-5085-8333-013aba9157c2)
To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
Emily Dickinson
This is what I understood: I’d been unhappy for a very long time. I lived such a sheltered life and I had little curiosity. I lived vicariously through the books I read. I identified with the Bronte sisters and Emily Dickinson. I lived away from society. I was lost. I had travelled down an abandoned road.
* * *
I called in sick the following morning. Then I phoned Rebecca and asked her to meet me for lunch at our favourite café.
The place was bristling with activity, and the outdoor tables were mostly filled. I found an empty table in the back near the bookstore. The bougainvillea was bountiful. I could hear the mumbled sound of other people’s conversations. Eventually, a very pregnant Rebecca walked towards me. She too was in full bloom, now close to her due date.
I envied her. She was happy. Pure and simple.
She bent over me and kissed me on the forehead. I in turn kissed her pregnant belly. We were beaming. She sat down.
We picked up our menus, decided on salad, and the waitress took our order. Then Rebecca looked at me with an odd smile on her face.
Old friends can always tell. Or at least she could.
‘Who is he?’ she asked.
‘Who is who?’
‘Come on. You have that freshly fucked look on your face. Your movements are so languid. It can only mean one thing. Who is he?’
I didn’t know if I wanted to tell her anything. I was afraid I would jinx everything. He was my secret. Sure, Sam had seen HIM come and go from the duplex but I hadn’t said anything to anyone.
What was there to say anyway? That I was having the most intense sexual experience of my life with a man I barely knew?
I felt exposed.
I told her the basics – how handsome he was, his accomplishments. But I stopped after that and asked her about her pregnancy. When she spoke, I pretended to listen.
I could only think about HIM. I hadn’t bathed after he left, wanting to retain his scent and the feel of HIM against my body for as long as possible. I could still feel his come inside me. I am sure my mouth must have seemed bruised from so much kissing and I had a string of love bites across my breasts. Every part of my body felt swollen, so loved, so attended to.
My best friend continued to talk. We sat together for a long time.
* * *
When I arrived home I saw a white cat with long hair and blue eyes sitting on the stoop and staring at me.
I picked it up and held it. The cat began to purr. I knocked on Sam’s door. When he opened it, he laughed heartily. ‘Oh, my, what do we have here?’
I handed him the cat. ‘Boy or girl?’
He turned it upside down. ‘It’s a girl.’ He paused and said, ‘I think.’
We walked into Sam’s duplex. He handed the cat back to me as I sat on the couch.
‘No collar, huh?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Nothing.’
‘She’s a pretty one.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s deaf.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Most white-haired female cats with blue eyes are deaf.’
‘Wow. What an interesting piece of information to have stored in your head. Prove it.’
He went back into his kitchen and brought out several pots and pans. He banged them together. The cat didn’t flinch.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘She didn’t hear it. But I did. Ouch.’
‘I was pretty sure I was right,’ he said. ‘So what are you going to do with her?’
‘Hmm. I didn’t think parenthood would happen like this,’ I said. ‘I guess I’ll put some signs up and then, if no one responds, I’ll keep her.’
‘What are you going to call her?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Esme.’
‘Interesting name.’
‘She was a character in a Salinger short story. Esme was a teenage girl who touched the heart of a weary soldier with her kindness.’
‘Nice story. Kinda like you and me, huh?’
‘Sure. Wanna go with me to the store to pick up some supplies for her?’ I asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Let me put her inside my apartment and get my purse, then we can go. Or do you mind if she stays in your apartment till we get back?’
‘That’s fine.’
* * *
We drove to a pet store. Sam and I entered it with anticipation. I found a shopping cart and we strolled down the aisles. We bought Esme everything: a litter box, litter, dry and canned catfood and enough toys to keep her occupied for a long time. When we arrived at the aisle with the collars, we both immediately gravitated to the blue one. ‘It will match her eyes,’ I said. He nodded.
‘It feels like Christmas, doesn’t it?’ Sam asked.
One of the clerks showed us how to make a nametag with her name and my phone number on it. ‘Guess this cements the deal,’ I told Sam. ‘I mean, what if her owner shows up? I do plan on putting up signs.’
‘It’ll be OK. It’ll be a happy ending either way,’ he replied.
‘Oh, it’ll break my heart if her former owner finds her.’
‘It’s always possible she was abandoned,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But why would anyone give up such a pretty cat? I don’t think she’s feral. She likes people too much. Wild cats are much more skittish.’
‘Of course, I would feel sad for her previous owners if they’re looking for her but I really hope no one claims her.’
‘Me too.’
The following evening I affixed flyers on various trees and lampposts in the neighbourhood.
6 (#ulink_546ba1a6-ba50-53e9-8091-bd9ef3e8d48b)
I can’t find HIM, redux. (#ulink_546ba1a6-ba50-53e9-8091-bd9ef3e8d48b)
I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back.
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
This is what I understood: there was no going back. None. Desire was a slow burn that would consume me. It didn’t matter. I just wanted HIM. HIM.
This was new territory for me.
The next morning I woke up with a start. It was Saturday. Where was he? I wanted to wake up to HIM. Where was he? Where was he? How could he not be here with me? What if he was still married? I hated that he was never available at weekends. Maybe he was still with her? Maybe he was with someone else. But when I asked HIM about her he always said the same thing: the marriage had run its course. There was no going back.
I remembered our conversation the first night we were together at the hotel and I brought up the subject of his marriage. He had sighed and moaned and looked sad. He said they continued to fight over custody of the children. He told me he lived in a small apartment near their family home. ‘It was the least I could do: leave her with the house,’ he confided. ‘I was the one who left her. She’s never forgiven me for it.’
I’d held HIM close. I could tell he’d gone through a lot.
He told me that one of the reasons he wasn’t available at weekends was that his wife had never really honoured the every-other-weekend agreement of their custody. She’d find reasons to make plans for the children at weekends, when they were supposed to be with HIM.
I’d kissed HIM. I felt sorry for HIM. He was the wronged parent. He seemed so earnest.
Of course I hated her. But if he weren’t available I would have to look the other way. I was absolutely smitten with HIM. It had never been like this before.
It wasn’t just the sex any more. It was the whole package. He practised international law. He jetted off to Europe and Asia. He was in an entirely different class professionally. I’d never been involved with a man like HIM.
So maybe power was an aphrodisiac. Or maybe it was that he kept coming back for more. Perhaps it was his whispering in my ear that he’d take care of me. It was all so alluring.
I loved fucking HIM but I also loved talking to HIM. It was just the beginning of our love affair but when I was with HIM I was certain we’d be together for a long time. He was everything I wanted in a man and more. And the sex, the sex … I got wet just thinking about HIM.
I slipped my fingers inside my pussy, closed my eyes. I could hardly breathe.
I was very close to coming when I opened my eyes to see my newfound cat next to my shoulder, staring at me. ‘Esme,’ I whispered, ‘just a moment.’ And then I closed my eyes again and rubbed myself to orgasm.
Afterwards I climbed out of bed, picked up the cat and took her to the kitchen to feed her. As she ate I cautioned her. ‘Esme. I am a woman who is in the midst of a very intense and sexual love affair. What you saw this morning is just the tip of the iceberg.’
She looked up at me momentarily. I knew she couldn’t hear or understand me, but I also knew she’d be my best confidante in the days to come.
7 (#ulink_05842303-6e5f-592f-a485-58c045d0e9c1)
Waiting to see HIM … (#ulink_05842303-6e5f-592f-a485-58c045d0e9c1)
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy,
This is what I understood: I was in so deep and there was no going back. I’d thrown caution to the wind and for what? My mother had taught me about the greatest writers of Western civilisation but she hadn’t versed me in self-protection. I had taken the road with steep cliffs on both sides.
* * *
Several days later I stood on a ladder in the backyard with Sam below me. He and I had decided to harvest the apples from the apple tree. Sam held a pillowcase to collect our bounty. He loved my French apple pie and I intended to make a dozen or so of them over the course of the next couple of days. We’d freeze most of them for later in the year.
It was during this venture that I felt the vibration of my cell in my back pocket of my jeans. I thought about not answering it but I wanted to know if it was HIM. I looked at Sam, who gave me an ironic smile.
‘Answer it already,’ he said.
I reached in my back pocket, the ladder swaying ever so slightly. Sam grabbed the base and held it in place. I removed one of my gardening gloves with my teeth and held it there. I could see it was HIM.
I put the phone back in my pocket. I’d have to read it later. There was no way I could read anything from HIM with Sam in such close proximity. My cheeks had already reddened with embarrassment.
