Kitabı oku: «Tell Me More»

Tell Me More

Janet Mullany

www.spice-books.co.uk

In memory of Macheath who always fell over for me

1

“I’M HERE FOR MY SKIS.”

I looked at him lounging against the doorway. He’d rung the doorbell, an exercise in futility or good manners—I wasn’t sure which since both door and screen were open to catch the late-afternoon sunlight. Hugh was quite the lounger, particularly in others’ beds. Searching for a snappy comeback, I said, “And how’s the stick insect?”

“Flowyr’s fine.”

Flowyr. I’d been betrayed for a woman called Flowyr.

“My skis, Jo.”

I stepped back. “You know where they are.”

He straightened himself and ambled into the house, accompanied by a few yellow leaves. I tried not to watch. There was something about Hugh in motion, any sort of motion, that still did things to me, a sort of knee-jerk hot-wire to desire. My body was in no hurry to change its habits.

I heard him go into the basement. “Hugh, while you’re down there, would you look at the traps?”

“I thought that was what your fucking cat was for.” Banging and thumping noises accompanied his words.

“He can’t empty mousetraps.”

After a while Hugh came back up the stairs carrying his ski gear. “Nothing.”

“Was the peanut butter still on them?”

“Christ, Jo, I don’t know.” He dropped his skis, poles and boots on the hardwood floor with a loud clatter. “I didn’t look that close, okay? It’s dark down there. Do you have my Ken Burns DVDs?”

I gestured toward the living room. “Feel free.”

I followed him in anyway, telling myself it wasn’t for the pleasure of seeing his ski-and-tennis-toned body drop to a squat, only to make sure he didn’t take the Firth-Ehle Pride and Prejudice. He liked Jennifer Ehle and her astonishing elevated breasts; I liked all the astonishingly unfettered penises waving around inside the men’s pants.

“So,” he said, catching me gazing at his thighs, “the thing is, Flowyr and I aren’t together anymore. I told you it was a onetime thing. An accident.”

“An accident? You rear-ended her?”

“Don’t yell, honey, you don’t want to go on the air sounding hoarse—”

“Don’t call me honey.”

He stood—without a tremor, quads in great shape—clutching a stack of DVDs. “Jo, I’m—”

“I bought Shaun of the Dead,” I said, seeing it in his hands.

“For my birthday, so it’s mine. Jo, I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry. The words you never expect to hear from a man. But was his apology for letting Flowyr run his red light or for depriving me of one of my favorite movies?

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

I dropped to the couch, putting myself at eye level with a relatively unfettered penis uncurling behind his khakis.

He had apologized.

If only a moment could be bronzed. Hugh dropped to his knees, laid the DVDs on the floor and shuffled forward. His hands landed on the couch on either side of me. “Sorry. I’ve been so unhappy. I know you have been, too. I was dumb. I …”

This was all too familiar; Hugh making himself available, those lovely toffee-colored eyes with the long lashes, his mouth and a slight dusting of late-day stubble, all within easy reach—all the above-the-neck parts I found sexy and irresistible. And he’d apologized, although I suspected it was pretty meaningless—Had the man no shame? Did he really want to keep Shaun of the Dead that badly? Wasn’t I intending to kick him out of my life (again) with no happy or unhappy returns?

Well, yes. But.

A quick calculation. When did I think I was next going to have the chance of brainless sex with someone who knew what he was doing and knew what I liked? Shouldn’t I be stocking up for the long famine ahead?

A whiff of eau de Hugh wafted into my brain, or crotch, or somewhere.

One of his hands moved to cup my hip.

Our heads swayed, angled.

His lips were slightly chapped. I hadn’t been around to remind him to carry his organic hemp lip salve, and however much mindless screwing he’d had with Flowyr (Flowyr!)—well, that slut wouldn’t be concerned about his lips. Or she might like it rough. Rough skin, that is, rasping on …

Oh, my God. We were kissing and for a moment it was poignant and lovely before it became something equally lovely, but hot and driven. Hands delved into clothes, pushing up, aside, unbuttoning; the press and trail of fingertips, palms, as we became reacquainted with each other’s skin. My T-shirt was up around my collarbone, my bra unsnapped and his tongue in my mouth, on my neck. I had to push him away so I could get rid of my clothes. As I struggled through the dark folds of T-shirt and disentangled my bra, his hands went to work on my jeans, and I lifted my hips to help him get them off me.

“Santa’s come early this year,” he commented at first sight of my panties.

Well, I did need to do laundry, it was true. I watched as his fingers splayed over the faded jolly old elf, and dipped under the elastic, where things were getting very wet.

I lunged at his shirt, unbuttoning, pushing it off him. “Get your pants off.”

He stood to undo his khakis. His cock sprang free, waving around a bit as though just woken and taking a look around. Hmm, nice day, nice warm temperature, glad to be out of those boxers, and is that a pussy I see before me?

I touched my clit through the cotton of my panties, while he shoved pants and boxers down, and toed off his sneakers and socks. I’d taught him that: always get your socks off, Hugh. There’s nothing as dumb as a guy with an erection in a pair of socks.

He watched my finger, my middle finger, the one I always used. “Dirty girl,” he said softly. “Such wet panties, too.”

I spread my legs a little more. “I can’t think how that happened.” I slid my finger beneath the elastic, where his finger had tickled and stirred. My clit was hard. I wanted to come. I wanted him to watch me. I wanted him inside me, that shiny pink cock all ready for me. I wanted his finger and tongue tickling me in rude and naughty places.

“I want—” I said, and Hugh shoved his cock into my mouth. Obviously that’s the sort of thing you did to a dirty girl who played with herself in front of you, and hadn’t had the foresight to put on her special lace or silk panties, but sported her Christmas cottons (slightly grayed and ragged ones at that) two months early. Besides, I was right at crotch level, with my mouth half-open while I considered taking an orgasm before he obliged.

I made a sound of mingled surprise and appreciation and clapped my hands to his nicely toned butt, my nose squished into his pubic hair, and swirled my tongue around his cock. I knew how he loved that, how he would groan and thread his fingers through my hair, and mutter a filthy stream-of-consciousness litany as he rocked in and out of my mouth.

“Oh God yes oh God baby that’s right oh yes oh God yes oh yes like that keep doing that oh God Jo oh God baby make me come oh yes come in your mouth oh yes oh yes …”

And as dumb as he sounded, it made me hot. Made me squirm against the sodden crotch of my Santa panties and groan along with him, while reminding myself that absolutely no way was he going to have the privilege of coming in my mouth, not when there was work to be done below. My hands were busy with him, sliding to stroke his balls and thighs, to probe and tickle and pinch. Now and then one of my nipples would rub against his thigh, bounce off muscle and wiry hair and send an unmistakable signal to my clit—get ready for takeoff—but all I could do was wriggle and rub myself against the roughness of the sofa upholstery.

I pulled free. Now. We were so attuned to each other that I didn’t have to say it, but Hugh, in a brilliantly executed choreography of lust, lunged for his pants on the floor and pulled a condom from his wallet.

A series of reactions rushed through my mind as he ripped it open.

He brought a condom.

What the hell, I want him to fuck me.

But he came prepared.

Very sensible, given the stick insect.

Or does he always have them in his wallet?

Oh, look at him slide it over himself. So sexy to see him handle his cock. I should have asked him to do it for me more often.

Did he always have condoms, even when he was living with me?

But he came here meaning to fuck me. Or fuck someone sometime—

“Hugh,” I said, and he took it as an invitation, which in a way it was—an invitation to stop me thinking.

The Santa panties hit the floor and Hugh reared over and in me, my butt on the edge of the sofa, legs over his shoulders.

“Nice?” he panted. “Nice for the little lady?”

“Oh, yes. Nice.” The little lady was being serviced, no question, fucked and screwed and impaled and penetrated and all the rest of it.

So good, so familiar, so very rude, in the middle of the afternoon with the front door open and me still wearing my socks (actually a pair of Hugh’s but I didn’t think he’d want to claim these fraying relics with a hole in one heel).

He bent his head to suckle one breast and then the other, sending me a notch higher. And higher, so that I stopped thinking about socks and DVDs and random condoms, everything except Hugh’s mouth and cock and his fingers on my clit.

And I was there, torqued up to the breaking point and then breaking and flooding as I came, while Hugh kept me there as long as he could. Then he gathered himself and plunged away in his familiar oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-come home run, short staccato stabs that—other than postorgasm—didn’t do a thing for me. He collapsed with a groan on top of me, folding me up like a pretzel.

“Nice?” I stroked his shoulder, damp with sweat.

He gave a primeval grunt.

“Uh, I can see this isn’t a good time. Would you like me to come back later?”

At the sound of the unfamiliar Irish lilt, we both froze.

Then Hugh leaped to his feet. “Who the fuck are you? What the hell are you doing here?”

I grabbed Hugh’s shirt to cover myself as I remembered, too late, the appointment I’d made. “Patrick … someone?”

Patrick someone, standing at the front door, smirked and blinked behind steel-rimmed glasses.

“Ah, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Patrick said. He glanced at my panties on the floor. “Merry Christmas.”

“Jesus Christ!” Hugh spluttered.

I tried to restrain a giggle at Hugh, standing outraged, cock deflating and wobbly; a giggle did escape as the condom dropped to the floor with a splat.

“Who was that—that leprechaun?”

“He can’t help being Irish. He was here to look at the apartment.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t carry the mortgage on my own.”

For an economist, Hugh was sometimes pretty stupid.

“But—but, you won’t be on your own. I’m moving back in.” He paused. “Aren’t I? I mean, after … this.”

“Hugh, you came to get your skis and DVDs. A fuck doesn’t give you permission to move back in.” I retrieved panties, T-shirt and jeans, and dressed.

Hugh, apparently realizing nakedness gave him no advantage, grabbed his clothes. “Jo, at least we should talk about it. I mean, we love each other. I’m sorry about … you know. Everything.”

“No.”

Brady, tail aloft, trotted into the living room and sniffed at the condom on the floor as though discovering some delicious edible.

“You fucking cat,” Hugh said as Brady wound around his ankles, purring. Early on, Brady had decided that Hugh was his best friend and answered to fucking cat as an alternative to his real name.

“Who are you going to get to empty the mousetraps?” Hugh said with despicable cunning.

“I’ll handle it. I’ve been handling it for the past three weeks.”

I picked up the pile of DVDs and handed them to him. “I’ll pack the rest of your stuff and let you know when you can come get it. I have to go to work now, Hugh.”

“We need to talk about this,” Hugh said, looking obstinate and ruffled in a way that pre-stick insect would have melted my heart.

“No, we don’t. But Hugh, one thing. When did you start carrying condoms around? I mean, do you let them fall out of your wallet at faculty meetings to impress the Chair or something?”

I could just imagine the Economics Department snickering and high-fiving—You get lucky this weekend, Hugh? You da man, Hugh!—under the benign gaze of the Chair, a dead ringer for Alan Greenspan, horn-rimmed eyeglasses, wrinkles and all.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Hugh picked up the condom from the floor and headed out of the room.

“Not in the toilet. You’ll block it.”

He stopped and turned to me, suspicion on his face. “How do you know that?”

“I just do.” Virtually anything blocked up the downstairs toilet. It was strictly off-limits to males and menstruating women.

“You bitch,” he said, and to my surprise he looked really upset. He flung the condom into the wastebasket in the corner of the room and flung himself and his DVDs out the front door. The effect was spoiled by his having to stomp inside the house again to get his skis. I sat on the couch, Brady kneading my legs, and listened to his car start and reverse out of the driveway and the sound die away with an awful sort of finality.

I cried a bit, then, thinking how tired I was of crying, but that you couldn’t let three years of your life go without some grieving. Brady purred and allowed himself to be hugged with a friendly tolerance that implied an empty food dish.

The bright fall day was fading now, but before I could go to work there was something I had to do. I went into the kitchen and armed myself. Knife, peanut butter, barbecue tongs (Hugh’s, and I might just forget to wash them afterward), rubber gloves, flashlight. Pants tucked into socks, in case anything was alive, and (aargh) panicked.

I didn’t need a man for this. Or for anything much else in my life.

“You sound just like the lady on the radio,” the woman in the store said. “We’ve got a new brand of organic peanut butter in. Would you like to try a sample? It’s really good.”

I am the lady on the radio. “No, this will do fine. Thanks.”

Sometimes, if I’m feeling sociable, I’ll admit to it, but then what usually follows is a disbelieving look, and a strange comment. I thought you were taller … older … younger … blonde. I hate your fundraising drives. Why do you play so much Tchaikovsky? Why don’t you ever play any Tchaikovsky?

Once, inexplicably and with great indignation, I thought you were black.

I packed my mousing supplies and my sandwich and soup and fruit for the night in my backpack and started putting on my bike gear again—gloves, the sort of knit hat favored by hunters and rapists, helmet and a scarf to fill the gap between the hat and my lightweight down jacket. Around me, at the checkout, others were doing the same, some with huge backpacks full of organic goodies.

In this pristine Colorado college town you wouldn’t dare drive two miles to work. I cycle.

Neither, of course, would you dare to do anything other than humanely trap rodents and release them into a gorgeous wilderness setting. Never mind that they’d have a matter of minutes to appreciate their new home before they became someone else’s dinner—it would be natural. It’s my deep, dark secret, sending mice to Nirvana on a delicious peanut-butter fantasy (and they certainly weren’t getting the organic stuff; my sentimentality only goes so far, and besides my concern was with ending, not enriching, their brief rodent lives).

Fall was definitely in the air now, crisp and wood-smoke-scented. Any day now we’d have some snow, and then I’d cross-country ski to the radio station. Funny how I never thought that the difference between Hugh and me could be so clearly defined by our choice of winter activities. He favored the mechanical assistance uphill and the short flashy burst of excitement of the downhill run, over in mere minutes. I enjoyed the diddling around with wax (oh, okay, I admit it—I have actually attended wax workshops … I am a certified cross-country geek). You can indulge in a slow, lazy plod uphill, savoring Mother Nature, or depending on your mood, bound athletically up—either way, you have the long, delicious glide down.

Not that it had anything to do with our sex life, which was pretty good, or more than good most of the time. Quite often I’d prefer the short flashy sessions on the kitchen counter or in the shower or … I wriggled around on my bike seat, wondering if it really was possible to have an orgasm by going over bumpy parts of the bike path, and whether it would be safe to do so. I could imagine myself hearing the local news, to my shame, from a hospital bed.

A massive, multibike pileup on the Douglas Pine Bike Trail resulted in several injuries today. The alleged perpetrator, Jo Hutchinson, a local radio personality who is neither blonde nor tall, showed signs of recent sexual arousal at the hospital. A spokesperson for the police department commented, “This sort of irresponsible behavior is something we take very seriously….”

I unlocked the back door of the radio station and wheeled my bike inside. Other bikes were still there; I was early tonight. The news was on and I listened to it briefly as I peeled off my bike gear. I had an hour before going on air, and later, in the wee hours of the morning, I planned to indulge in another of my deep dark secrets, one that did not involve the untimely demise of mice.

In my own way, I had been as unfaithful as Hugh, and with someone whose name I didn’t even know.

2

AT PRECISELY SIX MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT MY time was my own, with the last of the news headlines delivered from faraway Washington, D.C. I chatted briefly on air about the weather, a chilly night but with another perfect fall day in store for tomorrow, and the likelihood of the aspens peaking. I brought music swelling into the studio, and checked the dance of the monitor. All was well.

As I switched the mic off the phone rang.

He’s early.

I turned down the studio speaker and removed the headphones. My heart pounded as I answered the phone.

“Jo, honey, what are you doing Friday night?”

“Kimberly!” Despite my initial disappointment I was glad to hear from my best friend, a displaced Texas blonde who ran the station fundraising; a workaholic with a busy social life, she was often awake at odd hours—my hours.

“I have someone for you to meet. A man.” May-un, her voice dipped suggestively.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to meet any men.”

“You should for the sake of the environment. All those electrical devices buzz buzz buzzin’ away in your bedroom. You’re your own little brown cloud.”

The studio door opened. Jason, the assistant station engineer, stood there, buckling his bike helmet under his chin.

“Hold on, Kim.” I turned to him and smiled, for the sake of seeing him look adorably shy and give me a dazzling smile in return. “Hey, Jason. What’s up?”

“Hey, Jo. I just wanted to tell you I’m going home, so you’re on your own.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

He closed the door.

“Ah, the delectable Jason,” Kimberly purred. “You and him alone in that big ole radio station. Why, if it was me I’d eat him up.”

“You’d terrify him.” The thought had crossed my mind, too. Lovely, lean Jason, all of twenty-one (young but legal!), with the obligatory ponytail, faded jeans, hiking boots, single earring, stubble—oh, my God, he was a walking cliché—shy and sweet and good enough to eat, as Kimberly so often pointed out.

“You don’t think he’s gay, do you?” Kimberly asked, as though preparing to revise her list of potential bedmates.

“No, but I wonder about hidden piercings.”

“Me, too. All the time. Now this man, he’s interested in the station, too, so this way I kill two birds with one stone. He’s very eligible, Jo.”

“For me or the station?”

“Both, and honey, I know you can get a volunteer in for your shift Friday, so you’ll find a ticket to the symphony in your mailbox tomorrow.”

I imitated her Texas accent. “I just luuurve a man with a bulgin’ billfold.”

“Oh, me, too, honey.” But the fundraiser in Kimberly was in full swing now. “With the ticket you’ll find a list of the people we’ll be meeting. Memorize their names. Prepare to be charmin'. You can borrow my black taffeta skirt again.”

“And the killer heels?” I asked hopefully. I loved that skirt, its suggestive rustle and the way it flipped around above my knees. Kimberly had an extensive designer wardrobe, as befitted a former Dallas debutante who married an oilman in the days when oilmen made real money.

“You bet. Hey, maybe you could invite him to sit in when you’re on air.”

I don’t think so. “Maybe.”

We chatted a little more—as usual, these days, I assured her that life without Hugh was progressing as well as could be expected—and after I hung up I realized I hadn’t told her the story of the peeping leprechaun. A pity—she would have appreciated the comedic side of it—but then I would also have had to admit that I’d made the grave mistake of letting Hugh drop his pants.

And that reminded me that soon I’d have to make a decision about renting the apartment.

I’d deal with that later. I fired off an email to my roster of substitute announcers asking for a volunteer for Friday night, and looked at the clock. Half an hour to go on Scheherazade.

He’d better call soon.

I walked around the radio station, checking that the lights were off and the outside doors locked; also that Jason and everyone else had really left. I returned to the studio, the quiet space with its white walls and racks and racks of CDs, the gleaming console and monitors.

When the phone rang and I saw the screen announce “no data” I let it ring five times, despite my admonitions to the on-air staff to always, always answer the phone within two rings (unless you were on air, of course).

I picked the phone up and answered with a hint of yawn in my voice.

“Jo?” That voice, warm and dark.

“Yeah?” I pretended not to know who it was while my insides melted away and my nipples protruded through my T-shirt.

“This is a wonderful recording.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Now I felt shy, aroused, nervous. I, who put thousands of listeners at ease, now wanted one of them to assure me that I was safe—safe and loved—in his presence.

We chatted for a little while about the music—we both stopped to listen to the silvery flute ascent and descent, a magical, simple motif, and argued whether that, or the violin solo that represented Scheherazade’s voice, or the push and pull of the waves, was the most spine-chilling part of the work.

“Have you read The Arabian Nights?” he asked. “No? Oh, it’s a marvelous thing, Jo. Stories within stories within stories, like a maze. Sexy, too, although translators censored it, until the most recent editions.”

As he spoke, I tried to place his accent. Boston or possibly someone who’d once lived in England; he had that clipped precision and diction of a Boston blue blood … some of the time.

A pause, and the sound of movement. “Sorry. I’m putting another log on the fire. It’s chilly tonight.”

“I bet the aspens are pretty from up there.”

He chuckled. He wasn’t to be caught that easily. “Yes, I believe you said during the last break that they would be peaking. Nice try. How are you? I hope that bastard Hugh hasn’t been giving you any grief.”

I told him the story of Hugh’s visit and the leprechaun invasion, or at least a censored version—I used the term in flagrante… and heard him laugh with pure delight.

“How long do you think he’d been watching?”

“I don’t know. It could have been from the beginning.”

“Would you have liked him to watch?”

“I don’t know.” I lay back in my chair and watched the sound waves break and dance. We were moving into new territory here. We’d flirted, we’d talked about past relationships, but this—this was getting … well, kinky.

I cleared my throat and attempted to sound dispassionate. “Do you mean would I have liked to have known he was watching, or would I have liked to have found out afterward that he had watched? Oh. Damn. Mr. D., I have to go. Give me twenty.”

Mr. D. I called him that after I’d tried to find out more about him and he’d hinted he was quite a bit older than me (“Decades, my dear. Don’t ask.” I wasn’t sure whether I believed him) and old school. He called me Miss Hutchinson for at least the first dozen calls. It did sound sort of perverted to me—like I was letting him tie me up and spank me or something, or I was wearing a maid’s uniform, or both, but I liked that formality, the Mr. Rochester/Miss Eyre suggestiveness. I knew he was in the station broadcast area, somewhere, and a substantial donor to the station, but through a foundation. I loved his voice, the way he talked about books he’d read and places he’d traveled to and the joy when we found an author we both liked. We shared a passion for mountains, for high, remote places.

For the past six months, as Hugh and I began that painful slide away from each other, Mr. D. had been a constant. A friend. Someone I could tell anything.

There was the possibility we might both disappoint each other if we met. That this relationship could only exist at a distance while we both polished who we wanted to be. And yet he made me yearn for what I didn’t have—adventure, new experiences, the desire to become a sort of modern, land-bound female Sinbad, exploring and learning that one story could lead to another and another.

On the air again, with the pulsing red light outside the studio casting a warm blush into the studio through the glass window, I repeated the information about the last recording, and what we were to hear next, time and temperature … Hope your evening is going well. A little later, we’ll hear music written to put its patron to sleep, Bach’s Goldberg Variations in their entirety, but leading us up to that, a short piece by Stravinsky …

The next time the red light turned on, it was one in the morning. I talked briefly about the national morning news show, which we would interrupt a few times an hour with local news and weather. I hoped that those awake now—lonely lovers, people with insomnia or babies, or students with examinations to study for—would be asleep in four hours when the news began.

The Bach began—music to put you to sleep, but music that had always made me want to get up and dance.

The phone rang right on time.

“Forty minutes of genius and you,” Mr. D. said. “Where were we? Ah, yes. Him watching.”

“I don’t know that he would have found it that sexy.”

“Oh, he would have.”

“Do you like to watch people fuck?” Well, that put us clearly into the sexual, and I was the one who’d asked.

Mr. D., with his usual mastery of deflecting questions, chuckled. “Merry Christmas.” A pause. “I presume you’ve changed your underwear. Tell me about it.”

“You want me to tell you what I’m wearing?” I was surprised. That seemed a little unsophisticated, not what I would have expected from Mr. D. I wondered if he’d jerked off already and was looking for a quick arousal. I was almost shocked, although our increasing intimacy, our shared secrets, our stories, our mutual voyage, had led us here. I knew also, without either of us having to say anything, that we could back off from this awkward moment, and return to our usual friendly banter. Back to the familiar port as if we had never even started our journey.

“I believe it’s a standard approach,” he said.

A standard approach. “That’s one way to describe it.”

He said, his voice hesitant, “I’ve never done this before. I’m embarrassed, to be honest.”

So was I. I was also turned on, wild and slightly frightened, my hands cold, a little sweat on my forehead. I pressed the speakerphone button and laid the phone in its cradle. “Okay. It’s okay. I’m wearing a black T-shirt. Was. I’ve taken it off. My skin looks very pale because it’s almost dark in here. My jeans, now. Can you hear the zipper? I never wear shoes in the studio, and now I’m pushing my jeans down, and they’re off.”

“I can hear the sound of the denim rustling. But denim doesn’t rustle, does it? I can’t think of the right word.”

“I’m wearing red lace underwear.”

“The truth, Jo. Don’t humor me.” He sounded stern and sad. “I know men are all alike but … please, be honest.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “I am telling you the truth.” I swallowed. I sounded like a scolded child. “I—I always wear nice underwear for you. I want you to want me.”

“Always?”

“Since, oh, the first couple of times we talked. When I realized that you wouldn’t tell me who you are. It was all I could give you.”

“I’m sorry. Thank you. That’s an extraordinarily generous gesture.” His voice was even deeper, slower. “Tell me about this red lace underwear.”

“The bra is a half cup. My nipples are hard. I’m touching them.” I winced. I didn’t want to sound like a hooker but I didn’t know what I should say.

“Go on.”

“The panties … they’re called boy panties—you know what they are? They have little legs, and they come up to just below my navel. Even so, you can see a bit of hair curling out at the top of my thighs. And you can see my pubic hair through them, because they’re lace.”

“Your pubic hair must be dark. I’ve seen your picture on the station website.”

I giggled. “That picture doesn’t show my pubic hair.”

He laughed, too, and for a moment we were comfortable together. “I’ve imagined it. You look bright and intelligent and lively in that picture. And sensual. A smallish, slender woman, that’s how I see you—quite athletic, from riding your bike. What color are your eyes?”

“I’m stripping off for you and you want to know the color of my eyes?”

“Ah. Please, don’t make me beg. I’m already humiliated enough.”

“I’m sorry. I keep getting nervous and saying dumb things. My eyes are gray. They change color with what I’m wearing so sometimes they look blue or green.”

“Tell me what your breasts look like. Please.”

I sat in my chair, my legs spread. “They’re not very big. Although I’m dark-haired my skin is pale and the nipples are pink. I don’t tan easily. My breasts are very sensitive. My nipples get erect easily. I like to have them caressed. Kissed.”

I listened to him breathe.

“May I touch you?” he asked.

“Yes. Where?”

“I’m closing my hands over your breasts, squeezing them. Your nipples push against my palms. They’re very hard.”

“I love that. May I unzip you now?” I was pretty sure he was unzipped, stroking himself, pants spread open, my unknown man in his dark cabin. Did he gaze at his cock and hand, or were his eyes closed? Did he smile or grimace?

“Later. Let me give you pleasure. Stroke my way down your body. Ah, here’s your navel, that sweet little crease. Take off your bra … good. I’m holding your breasts, squeezing them, feeling their weight. I want to lick them.”

I licked my fingers and pinched my nipple. “I can feel it in my clit.” Oh, God, I’m so crude. Heat spread over my face.

“I think your clitoris needs some attention, don’t you? Are you wet yet? Take off those pretty panties, darling. I’m kissing the inside of your thighs, where the skin is so soft and silky. I can smell you. Yes, you’re wet. Soaking. Dripping for me. You’re swollen with desire. Your clitoris is as hard as your nipples.”

My skin glimmered in the light, my pubic hair a dark mystery, my hand delving, playing.

“Taste yourself.” His voice was hoarse against the artful spin of Bach.

I slipped my fingers inside myself, then into my mouth and tasted my arousal, my salty musk. I imagined his hand pumping, the flex of his forearm as he jerked off.

“I wish I could put my fingers into your mouth. Feel you suck them, lick between them. And I’d like to lick you. Your lips, your chest, your cock, all over. I want to make you come.”

“I want you to come, too. I want to hear the sounds you make. Down between your legs, darling. Play with yourself. I’ll play with your nipples. A little pinch, some fingernail—is that what you like?”

My toes gripped the edge of the console.

“Come for me,” he whispered. “Come for yourself. Do it now.”

I came so hard it almost hurt, ratcheting me upward. I abandoned the attention to my breast and clutched at the arm of the chair, terrified that I would fall, alarmed by the intensity of the orgasm, yet not wanting it to end. I subsided, sobbing for breath.

“Lovely.” His voice was a whisper. Had he come?

“Did you …” I hoped he hadn’t. I wanted to share the moment with him.

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Let me help you.” Maybe he was still shy.

“Your pleasure isn’t enough?”

I could see him, a sprawled dark figure, face hidden, his stroke slowed to accommodate my needs, fingers curled loose around his cock. Sliding. Wetness, a very little, gathered and dribbled over his fingers.

“So.” He cleared his throat. “What happens next?”

3

AT THE END OF AN AIR SHIFT, IT’S CUSTOMARY to tidy up for the next person on air.

After I signed off for the night—the station is dark between two and five in the morning—I made sure there were no embarrassing damp pieces of underwear lying around.

I reshelved compact discs and pulled the first few for my morning announcer.

I took the last transmitter reading of the night.

I set the satellite for the morning news feed. I knew Gwen, our local host, would do it anyway, but it was what I always did as a courtesy to her.

I checked my email for the last time, and found two new messages. One from Julie, a serious, earnest music major, saying she could do Friday night, but wanted to be home by midnight. Good enough. I could come in for a couple of hours.

The other was from the leprechaun, as Hugh had called him—he looked ordinary enough to me, no dumb hat or buckled shoes. I had a vague impression of a shortish, slender man with wild coppery hair, steel-rimmed eyeglasses and a strange patch of beard on his chin. I remembered the amusement in his voice and the lilt of his brogue.

I’m still interested in the apartment if it’s available. Please let me know when I may view it.

What a gentleman. No mention of Christmas or underwear or your future landlady having her ass screwed off on the sofa.

Lights off, bike gear on, alarm turned on and I was out into the cold night, a splendor of stars above me.

Could Mr. D. see those stars from his cabin or was it buried deep in trees? I was sure he lived in a cabin, high up in the mountains, although most of us in town had hardwood floors and woodstoves.

I pushed off, cycling hard up the hill, forcing myself. I wasn’t afraid of cycling in the dark—at any time of night in this environmentally conscious town there were cyclists on the road. As I rode, I thought about renting the apartment, the mice in the basement … domestic trivialities.

Anything to stop me thinking about what Mr. D. had proposed.

After I’d emailed Patrick, telling him to come—an unfortunate word choice I changed to stop by—anytime after three the next day, I couldn’t sleep. I wandered around the house, now too empty without Hugh. I couldn’t put it off any longer. Had I made the right decision regarding Mr. D.? It had to be, since there was no going back.

To my surprise, the man who had proved so elusive for many months now wanted to meet me. One orgasm—mine, if he had told me the truth, and I wasn’t quite sure he had done so—and he had a complete change of mind?

And I was embarrassed and angry. I had touched myself and talked dirty and moaned, broken my phone-sex cherry, I guess. I had shared this most intimate of pursuits with someone who hadn’t reciprocated. I had performed without knowing it. Now I was not in a mood to be cajoled.

“But of course we should meet.”

“No,” I’d said.

“I’ve never been more intimate with a woman. Not even when I was married—”

“You don’t know me. I’m a fantasy for you. You’re a fantasy for me. It should stay that way.”

“Don’t push me away, Jo. I understand that you’re feeling wounded by what Hugh did, but—”

“How do you know I didn’t make Hugh up?” I was angry now. “And this isn’t about Hugh. It’s about you and me. Think about it, Mr. D. I don’t even know your name. You haven’t exactly been open with me, have you?”

“My name? You want to know my name? It’s—”

“Stop!” I was panting as though I’d ridden a bicycle uphill. “Don’t tell me.”

“Jo, what do you really want?” His voice was gentle, sad.

I don’t know. You. Maybe.

And then I thought of the men I’d loved, the men who claimed to love me back, the mistakes and infidelities, the withdrawal into indifference. I remembered pushing Hugh away in bed because I felt smothered; I remembered too how I’d reached out for him, when I was overcome with loneliness and regret, and his impatient grunt as he shook off my hand.

Did it happen with every relationship? I didn’t want that familiar path anymore. I didn’t want to take that journey—not yet anyway. Eventually I knew I could take the risk, but not now, still worn out and disillusioned by Hugh’s infidelity.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t think this is right for me. I’m sorry. We should say goodbye.”

So it was done.

His last words to me echoed in my head. “Very well. I’m sorry, Jo.”

A click and silence.

I had lost a friend.

Patrick had pretty much decided he’d move into the apartment on Yale Drive if Jo Hutchinson offered it to him, which he thought she probably would. It turned out she knew one of his references, a good sign.

The apartment was small, built over a garage; what Americans called an efficiency and he’d call a bedsit, one large room with a minimal sort of kitchen arrangement and a bathroom. There was a staircase up from outside and a door leading into the house and Jo offered him use of the washer-dryer in the basement and, if he had ambitious cooking plans, he could use her kitchen.

He told her he might well be inspired to bake a half-dozen loaves in that fancy high-tech oven, and she looked at him in a way that suggested she didn’t know whether he was joking or not.

He liked her. She was a bit eccentric, and there was some awkwardness, mostly on his part, that he’d seen her naked.

She spent the first five minutes of this meeting staring at his chin and then told him that taking the beard thing off was an improvement. Given what she was doing the day before, he thought he should be flattered that she’d even noticed his facial hair. He launched into a long rambling explanation of how he tended to sideswipe the beard thing while shaving so it lost definition, but the silent subtext of his monologue was that he wished he’d got a better look at her breasts when she was naked.

Today she wore some sort of blue shapeless dress thing—her legs and feet bare—probably made of hemp or tofu or compost like everything else in the town. He liked her slender body and waifish short dark hair in a ragged sort of style that either cost a lot of money or was a mistake, he couldn’t tell.

She didn’t look the way she sounded on the radio; she was younger than he would have thought, about his age, late twenties. But her voice was sexy in real life, too, and he told her he liked the music she played even if he didn’t always understand it.

“Do you like being a DJ?” he asked.

“I’m music director. I decide on the music programming. The on-air work is only a small part of what I do.”

He felt he was being corrected. For someone who had a geeky sort of job, though, even geekier than his, and looked fey and otherworldly, she was right on the button when he asked about insurance and security and cable access.

By this time they were back in the kitchen, where she poured him a cup of coffee and examined his application. “It says here you’re a web designer.”

“Yeah, I’ll be working from here.”

“That’s fine. We won’t see much of each other because I sleep mostly during the day.” She refilled his coffee mug. “I have a Mac, a laptop. I really like it.”

“I use Macs, too. Three of them and six screens. I’ll show you my setup if you like.” He stopped, because it sounded as though he was boasting, or as if he’d waved his dick at her to prove it was bigger than her boyfriend’s. (It was.)

He told her the brief, bare facts of his divorce, of how he was moving out until his soon-to-be ex-wife had finished her master’s and they could sell the house. She nodded sympathetically and he had the urge to tell her how depressed and horny he was but instead he told her he was stable and financially responsible and so on.

He embarrassed himself trying to look down the front of the blue shapeless thing and musing on how he could persuade her to bend over so he could look up it. He wondered, not for the first time, if women spent as much time and energy, for instance, looking at men’s flies or up the legs of their shorts. Elise had told him once that men were natural sprawlers and it was no big effort to spot, or ignore, a dangling penis in warm weather.

At one point, mildly exciting, Jo stood on one leg with the other foot against her knee in a sort of yoga pose—in this town you had to do yoga or pilates or else risk social ostracism, but he did neither. He suspected there was a crack squad of yoga police who would break down your door to make sure you had your foot in your ear.

Great legs, he noted.

They shook hands and she said she’d let him know.

As he drove away, he decided he absolutely had to forget that he’d seen her naked and stop thinking about what she’d be like in the sack (pretty good, he suspected). It was an honest mistake. He’d heard the moaning and groaning and thought someone was in pain, and looked around the open door and the first thing he saw was her pair of Father Christmas knickers on the floor, the crotch sopping wet.

After that, it was less of an honest mistake. He must have stood there for a good five minutes watching that unimaginative fuck, turned on as hell, seeing the guy’s cock slide in and out of her. He wasn’t particularly interested in the cock, but he could see how it cleaved her, opened her up. She was all sweet and pink and shiny beneath that tuft of black hair, the star of his private porno movie.

Shit. This was a business arrangement. Period. And he should feel relieved that he’d found a place to live, but he felt only sadness.

He couldn’t wait to get away from Elise, but he dreaded the actual moving out, saying goodbye, knowing from now on it was just going to be legal business.

More tears. His if not hers.

How had everything gone so wrong?

Thursday evening at the station we had an on-air staff meeting, me and two full-time announcers and a handful of subs and volunteers. I filled them in on the latest station news and praised them for the quick handling of a breaking news story the previous week. I passed on information from Neil, our program director and my boss, and pretended not to notice the grins and eye rolls.

Sometimes I felt sorry for Neil. Mostly he just annoyed me. He’d come to us from television, and, snobs that we were, Kimberly and I laughed at his liking of expensive suits and haircuts and his blatant ambition. He didn’t know much about music, either, which was a real problem, and mispronounced composers’ names on the rare occasions when he took an air shift. He spoke longingly at staff meetings of talk shows and more news programming.

I found a garment bag on my desk; Kimberly the designer-clothes fairy had visited, leaving the skirt, the shoes and a folder with just about every detail except the inseams of our victims for the night. My date was Willis Scott III, one of our quaint local royalty, in his mid-thirties, president of a real estate company. I yawned as I scanned where he’d gone to school, his hobbies and nonprofit involvement.

On the top of the sheet, in her round, loopy, rich-girl writing, Kimberly had given me the following instructions:

Wax. Go to Azure Sky Salon and mention my name.

No garlic.

Don’t say fuck too often.

Don’t criticize the orchestra.

Don’t cut your own hair like last time.

Just to annoy me she had put a smiley face over the i in her signature.

Wax? Was she kidding? I hoped she only meant my legs and armpits, something I tended to neglect at this time of year.

I took a quick look through the rest of my mail, most of it ending up in the recycle bin.

There was one envelope that must have been hand-delivered, my name neatly typed on the outside. It must be—had to be—from Mr. D. I wanted so badly to open it, but we’d hurt each other and I was afraid of what I might read. Forgiveness might be even worse than any accusation.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

I miss you already.

Beneath it was a phone number and an email address.

I turned the paper over although I knew there was nothing on the other side. Had this really been for me? Yes, that was my name on the outside, in the same standard computer font as the letter. It had to be from Mr. D.—who else could it be from?

I could phone him. I could …

I dangled the paper between my fingertips.

There was no such thing as privacy anymore. I might have an unlisted home phone number, but my information—everyone’s—was all over the place on any number of databases, easily found. I crumpled the paper and threw it into the recycling bin. Then I picked it back out, smoothed it with my palms and wished he’d written it, not typed it. There was one way I could determine it was from Mr. D.—quite simple. I could make a call to that number.

No, not now. I folded the paper and pushed it into a desk drawer, out of sight.

After all, I couldn’t be sure it was him. A good proportion of the male population assumed that a woman was on the radio purely to get a man, meaning them. They sent in photos, some with their cats or dogs, and some, the anonymous ones, proudly displaying an erection but not their face. They sent their resumes, or long rambling letters explaining how we’d been soul mates in Arthurian Britain. We attracted the sad lonely misfits, and that was the end of it.

“You look good. Did you get into Azure Sky okay?” Kimberly bent forward and examined her lipstick in the women’s room mirror.

“Uh-huh.” One of the razors Hugh had left behind had done perfectly well.

“Now be nice to him.”

“You sound like you’re running the best little whorehouse in Texas.” I tucked my small silver purse under one elbow, rearranged my shawl and willed my nipples to behave. I wasn’t wearing a bra—my top was a gray silk halter-neck, found at a yard sale. Above my knees, the taffeta rustled. To complete my happy-radio-hooker outfit I wore thigh-highs, black with a seam, and a pair of large dangly fake diamond earrings.

Kimberly gripped my elbow and escorted me out of the ladies’ room.

“You have the right to remain silent. You have—”

“Smart-ass.” She tugged me across the foyer, filled at intermission with well-heeled, mostly middle-aged patrons, mixed in with a few Birkenstocked old hippies, and some younger people in jeans and hiking boots and down vests. The symphony was nothing if not diverse.

We approached a group of people with champagne glasses; our station manager, Bill, was among them and the administrative director of the symphony. Kimberly made introductions, her mane of blond hair tossing, and I got to meet Willis Scott III.

He was the sort of man Kimberly would go for—I preferred them in faded blue jeans or baggy khaki shorts—dark with a bit of gray, handsome; expensive haircut, suit, cologne.

“I’m surprised you enjoy the symphony,” he said.

“Why?”

“You listen to music all day.”

“I don’t listen to it a whole lot. There’s quite a lot to do in the studio while the music’s playing.” Phone sex, for example.

“Sounds interesting.”

I nodded, searching for something to say. “Tell me about what you do.”

He was only too happy to, running off at the mouth about prime interest rates and equity, and how this was a great time to buy up.

I drank champagne and tried to look intelligent.

“I’ve got a new development just north of town,” he said. “Great architecture, real exclusive, beautiful setting. We’ve preserved the environmental integrity, lots of trees and stuff, and we’re keeping it upscale, you know what I mean? Second homes, mostly—”

“If you’re that concerned with environmental integrity, why develop it? It’s not as though you’re providing housing for people who really need it.”

He frowned, his handsome brow wrinkling. “There’s a demand, you wouldn’t believe it. But Jo, you know, if you’re in the market—”

I guess that was what happened when you wore designer clothes or possibly gave off some sort of involuntary slutty radar. “I don’t have any plans to—”

“Call me.” He produced a business card.

“Okay.”

Like a gentleman he held my champagne glass while I opened my purse and tucked his card away.

He moved a little closer to me and tugged my shawl back on to my shoulder. His manicured fingers rested on my bare skin a little too long. “You’re a very attractive woman, Jo. Maybe we could have dinner sometime?”

I stepped back. “I work most evenings, Willis.”

“Lunch, then. And we could drive out to the development after. Commune with nature. How about it?”

“I’ll let you know.” I couldn’t wait to throw away—in the recycling bin, of course—his business card.

“Great shoes.”

That was all I needed, a shoe fetishist. Maybe it was an attempt at empathy.

To my great relief the chimes sounded for the second half of the concert. As we walked back into the concert hall, one of the group—a fortysomething fair-haired woman—walked beside me.

“I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your show.”

“Thanks.”

“You always sound so approachable. I think a lot of people get intimidate by classical music. It’s a shame.”

“It is. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m Liz Ferrar.” She smiled and touched my arm. She whispered, “If Kimberly thinks Willis is a hot prospect for the station, she’s wasting her time. He’s a real tightwad. The whole family is. And he’s a jerk.”

“Fuck, yes. He hit on me so hard, I couldn’t believe it. Liz, don’t you run the women’s center in town?” She was the reference Patrick had given, the one I claimed to know. “I guess you know Patrick Delaney.”

“Oh, yes. He’s a sweet guy. He designed our site for free. How do you know him?”

“He applied to be my tenant.”

“Good. I’m glad he’s leaving Elise—I mean, you hate to see a couple break up, but when they’re both so unhappy …” She shrugged.

“Come visit us—me, I mean, and Patrick, too. Call me at the station.” We exchanged cards.

Happy that I’d made a new friend, I shushed Kimberly so I could listen to the music.

I arrived at the radio station by cab shortly after the concert ended, and settled myself in for a quiet evening. Time to get caught up on paperwork. I had an article to write for the newsletter, programming to select for the next couple of months.

I jumped every time the phone rang.

At two in the morning I shut down, tidied up the console and reached for the phone to call a cab home.

It rang. No data.

I stared at the ringing phone. I had no obligation to answer—we were off air. After seven rings the caller would be transferred to the station’s voice mail.

But I answered anyway.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“I’m sorry, Jo. I pushed you too hard.”

“It’s okay.”

He sighed. “I want honesty between us. It’s been two nights and I’ve had time to think and …”

“And?”

“We don’t need this sort of relationship. We have plenty of other things to talk about. We don’t have to continue in this way. Unless you want to.”

“What do you want?”

He laughed again. “Whatever you’re willing to give. Darling, it was plenty of fun for me but I love to talk to you. It’s up to you how we proceed now. By the way, you looked ravishing at the symphony tonight.”

My voice shot up an octave. “Oh, my God. Please don’t tell me you’re that creepy Realtor. Or that you even know him. No, of course you’re not. Your voice is different … sorry, I’m rambling. You were there?”

“I have my sources.” He paused. “What I’m saying, Jo, is that you should be in a real relationship. I’d be jealous, of course. But I don’t want you to feel … obligated to me in any way.”

“You’re trying to drop me, aren’t you?”

“In a way, yes. I don’t want to lose you. I hope I won’t. That we’ll be friends. I accept that you don’t want to meet. This is entirely on your terms.”

I dropped my head into my free hand and groaned. “I don’t know that we can go back. I’m not really clear what we’re arguing about.”

“I’m not sure we’re even arguing. I don’t want you to get hurt by our … affair.”

“Affair. You’re so old school.”

“Yes, I am. How would you define our relationship?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter? It is what it is, whatever that might be.” I paused. “If I did fuck someone, what then?”

“You mean, should you tell me?”

“Yes.”

“If you wanted to.”

“Tell you or … describe it to you?”

“Whatever you feel like doing.”

He kept throwing the ball back into my court, giving me the control—or pretending to give me the control.

“I might ask you to do the same. Tell me about an encounter you had. Would you do that?”

“If you asked, yes. Gladly.”

I stood, pushing my feet into my shoes and reaching for my shawl. “Let me think about it. I should go home. I’m glad you called.” I was a bit scared. We seemed to have moved very fast into kink territory and what alarmed me most was how it excited me. Kimberly had once said that even ordinary people have the most bizarre sex lives, that a huge amount of kinky stuff goes on in nice normal neighborhoods between nice normal people. I’d asked her what her preferences were, not really believing her, challenging her.

She had leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Woof. Woof.”

Then we’d both collapsed in giggles. But ever since then, my mind had opened up to the possibilities. I’d wondered. I’d been curious.

And now here was my chance to go on my own voyage of discovery and storytelling and while it was exhilarating I was scared by it. Would I regret not going on the kink voyage when I was old and gray (although Kimberly assured me the old hippies were the best—or the worst—depending on how you looked at it)? Would Sinbad have regretted never taking the voyage?

“Before you go …” He cleared his throat. “Very high heels and stockings with seams, my source said. Real stockings?”

“No. Thigh-highs.”

“Ah. No garter belt, then. A pity.”

I smiled at the regret in his voice. “But with no panties,” I lied, and pushed my ordinary white cotton pair down. Not quite a lie.

“No panties at the symphony?” He laughed.

“I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. The orchestra was pretty good tonight. I don’t know if your source actually listened to the music. Maybe he spent the whole night looking at my legs.”

“My source also mentioned your nipples.”

“Your source needs a cold shower.”

“Jo?”

“Hmm?” The air had shifted, or so it felt, although the studio was perfectly warm and comfortable. My nipples were erect.

“Show me.”

“Show you what?”

“Take off your top.”

I turned on the speaker to the phone and untied the halter top. It slithered down my torso in a caress of satin.

“That rustling sound …”

“My skirt.”

“Ah. And your nipples …”

“Erect. Very hard. Dark pink like raspberries. I’m pinching them.”

“Good. Are you standing or sitting?”

“Standing.”

“Spread your legs. Can you feel the air on your cunt?”

It was the first time he’d ever used the word, the first time I’d ever liked a man to say it to me. The contrast between his cultured voice and the crudeness of the word made me shiver.

“Now lift your skirt. Tuck it up, if you can, so you can keep your hands on your breasts. I want to see you exposed, the contrast of the black stockings against your skin. That rustling is supremely erotic, by the way.”

“Say it again,” I whispered, my skirt tucked up.

“What?”

“Talk about my cunt. Please.”

“Your cunt.” I could hear the smile in his voice. That’s what we say in the business, when you want to convey an upbeat attitude on mic. Put a bit of smile in it.

“Your cunt,” he repeated. “I’m imagining your hair looks very dark against the white of your legs. Quite a lot of hair. You’re not the sort of woman who’d shave or wax it into submission. Is your cunt wet, Jo?”

“Yes. I want to touch myself.”

“Not yet. Can you come from touching your breasts?”

I moaned and rocked my pelvis forward. I thought of the pinkness and wetness between my legs, my clit a hard splinter of nerve endings. I pressed my middle finger hard against my nipple as though it was my clit, rotating.

“That’s right, darling. Get yourself off.”

“Talk to me,” I gasped. “I’ll come if you talk to me.”

The studio door banged open, and I blinked as the room flooded with light.

Jason stood there, his mouth hanging open at the sight of me.

I stood there for a moment, horrified, my fingers stilled, before I lunged forward and disconnected the call. I fumbled to pull my top up, my skirt down.

“I’m sorry—” Jason mumbled. He had an erection; I could see it distending his jeans.

“No, I’m sorry. Oh, fuck.” I could get fired for this.

“I was … uh, I didn’t think you were here.”

“I didn’t know anyone else was here.” My fingers shook as I tied the halter top. “I’m leaving now.”

I grabbed my shawl and purse, mortified, further embarrassed by having to scoop my panties from the floor. I’d find another phone and call a cab. I’d wait for it outside, braving the freezing temperature, rather than having to face Jason after what he’d seen.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. I walked toward the door, toward him, discovering it was almost impossible not to walk with a sexy sway in the shoes.

“Uh. It’s okay. It was hot.” Jason blushed. He backed away from me. “You’re hot.”

I stopped. I needed a real man, a flesh-and-blood man. Just for tonight.

And then I can tell Mr. D. about it.

I guess I was ready for this journey, after all.

“Jason, I need a ride home.”