Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (13 page)

pink by raspberry vodka and a hint of cranberry juice. I blushed when I saw him, remembering the clinch I’d had in my fantasy—Jeremiah starring as the sexy snowboard instructor, and

me, his own personal snow bunny. It had seemed so dirty that

he’d left his shades on the whole time, so that I watched myself in the mirrored reflection as the pleasure built. Now, I shifted on the round leather seat as I recalled how he’d unzipped my

pale purple snowsuit, how he’d flipped me over and fucked me

doggy-style against a snowdrift that would never, ever melt.

My breath caught when Jeremiah leaned over the bar and plucked a wayward feather from my long dark fringe. Was it my

imagination, or had he just programmed the Terry Jacks’s ballad

“Seasons in the Sun” on the jukebox?

“Roger’s miserable,” I told Carolyn, trying to push thoughts

of Jeremiah from my mind. “He can’t work. Can hardly get out

of bed. Can’t do anything but moan.”

“He’s a schmuck,” Carolyn insisted. “Ditch the dude and

move on.”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I loved him.

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While I sipped my second drink, I thought about the way

he’d looked at me in the moonlight at the premier. About the

way he’d kissed my hand and held me close while we’d danced.

“He’ll be better in the spring,” I told Carolyn, certain.

“Only if he’s a groundhog.”

Spring

California is breathtaking in the springtime. To everyone,

that is, but Roger.

“In New York, it’s raining,” I told him. I’m the weather girl

on channel 23. I had my facts straight. I’d been waiting impa-

tiently for today to arrive. March twentieth. Spring equinox. No more would I hear about the wonder of snowbanks, the sweet

smell of roasted chestnuts. Plus, I had a secret weapon with me, spring in a bag, and I couldn’t wait for Roger to stop working

and come play with me.

“I’d be at Tony’s Coffee Shop, writing in the back booth,

listening to the rain.”

“But it’s gorgeous outside,” I said, “just look. And it rains in L.A. sometimes, too. Maybe you’re simply homesick. Have you

ever thought that? Maybe it’s not the weather.”

Roger shrugged and went back to his laptop. He was working

on a new episode. I wondered how someone so miserable in real

life could be so funny on paper. I stared at his serious face, at the way he looked pinched when he focused, and then I peered at his screen. Had I just caught sight of the word
feathers
? Was Roger using our relationship as fodder for his sitcom?

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He blocked the screen with his hand, gave me an annoyed gri-

mace, and then waited for me to move aside before he continued

typing. Morosely, I headed back to his bedroom with the satchel still unopened in my hand. There were rose petals in the large

paper bag. Thousands upon thousands of rose petals. I’d spent

the whole morning picking them carefully off the green stems,

and I had the thorn marks on my thumbs to prove it. The idea

had been building in my head for weeks, a way to kick-start our relationship, coinciding with a way to celebrate the official first day of spring. I hadn’t stopped to consider that Roger might not like California in March any more than he had in December.

Now, I would be celebrating without Roger. I emptied the

bag out on the bed and stared at the mounds of individual pet-

als. I smoothed some out with my palm. They felt so light be-

neath my skin. Like silk rather than plant. Without thinking,

I pulled off my tiny sweater, then drew my semisheer sundress

over my head. My panties were the same hue as the scarlet petals.

I’d chosen them on purpose, wanting to compliment the flowers

rather than clash, and on a whim, I decided to leave them on.

Gingerly, I climbed on top of the mattress, but I didn’t call

out to Roger. Instead, I imagined Jeremiah walking in, finding

me, kissing me from my lips to my toes. He had full lips; I’d

noticed that each time he greeted us at 5th Avenue. He some-

times seemed to be lost in thought when I walked through the

front door, and he’d bite his bottom lip for a moment before

saying hello.

God, that was sweet,
I always thought. That little-boy-lost expression. It made me want to find him, or help him find his way home. And by “home,” I meant the split between my legs.

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Oh, Jeremiah
, I thought as I stroked myself through my satin panties.
Put down the cocktail shaker and get over here.
I had the distinct feeling that he wouldn’t push me away if I snuggled against his chest, that he would admire my bikini-clad body if I Rollerbladed into his arms.

The flowers caressed me, light as fairy wings. My fingertips

pressed more firmly to my panty-clad clit. When playing solo,

I’ve always loved to start by stroking myself through a barrier, that sensation of almost, but not quite, touching. Now, I worked slowly, hearing the
tip-tap
of Roger’s fingers on the keyboard in the other room, but seeing Jeremiah in my head the whole

time.

Around and around my fingertips skated, making daring

little diamonds, sweet circles, stretched-out ovals, exactly the way I like. Pleasure burst through me, until I was breathless, not caring so much about being quiet. Not worrying whether Roger

heard me or not. I rolled on the mattress, my body releasing

the scent of so many roses into the air. I thought for one last moment of beckoning Roger, of having him find me like this—

spread out on the blanket, roses surrounding me, my cheeks as

pink as the petals. But Jeremiah winked at me in my fantasy, and I closed my eyes and let myself go.

Carolyn had said that Jeremiah was my own form of light-hat

therapy. She claimed that if I thought Roger needed to wear a

snow hat, then I should try to wear Jeremiah. “He’d look good

on you,” she assured me.

I had to admit, he was appealing. That boyish grin. Those

great green eyes. The way he always had to push his hair off his forehead with an impatient flick. I wanted to push the hair away

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for him, with my lips. I wanted to sit on the top of the bar and have him make a drink out of me.

But I’d done the bartender-cum-actor before, as well as the

waiter-cum-actor, grocer-cum-actor, Porsche-salesman-cum-

actor I knew that type of relationship tended to expire before

last call (or after the last “cum”). I still had hopes of mak-

ing things work with Roger. “Relationships take effort,” I told Carolyn piously.

“I think Jeremiah would go down easy,” she countered.

He did in my fantasy. Spring showers raining down on us.

The two of us clinched on a bed of petals. His strong, hard

body against mine. I shut my eyes tighter, breathed in the per-

fume of the roses, kicked off my panties, then spread my own

petal lips and danced my fingertips ever more powerfully over

my clit. There was no pushing Jeremiah out of this fantasy. He

fit right in.

His body pulsed between my legs, letting me feel his cock,

dipping in once, just to show me how wet I was, then deeper,

to show me how hard
he
was. He pushed forward and stayed, rocking his hips slightly to let me feel those secret places inside me come magically to life. I moaned, then realized I’d made the noise aloud. Had Roger heard me? I paused, listening, caught

the sound of a chuckle from the living room.

Quickly, I rolled over, pressing my fingers deep inside my

pussy now, fucking myself fiercely as I crushed those vibrant red petals, coming as I heard Roger muttering his own dialogue.

“Not
water
chestnuts, Weather Girl,” I heard him say.

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Summer

“Summer’s muggy in New York,” I reminded Roger. “I

called your mother. She said if she could be anywhere in the

world, she’d be here, right by the beach, enjoying the non-muggy weather.”

“Summer is Coney Island,” he got a glazed look in his eyes.

“We’ve got the pier.”

“It’s not the same.”

It was becoming more difficult now for me to remember ex-

actly why I’d liked Roger in the first place. He had made me

laugh. He had called me beautiful. We’d shared one of those perfect meets at a premier, where the stars shone not only over head, but all around us. When I concentrated hard enough, I

could see the way he’d dazzled me. Our first month together

had been bliss. But the image was growing faded at the edges,

like a vintage postcard kept too long in a top dresser drawer.

The edges bent. The paper brittle.

“I live right near the beach,” I reminded him, pointing out

the window. We could hear the waves crashing against the sand.

The surf was up. But not for Roger.

“It’s on the wrong coast.”

“Wrong coast,” Carolyn echoed with distaste. “What’s
that
supposed to mean, Shelly? Like you’re going to bring the Atlantic

Ocean to him? He really
does
think you’re the character in his stupid little sitcom, doesn’t he? He thinks you’re Weather Girl.

‘If you don’t like the weather, change it.’ Right? Isn’t that the tagline?”

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Carolyn was too serious to appreciate sitcoms.

“He’s an artist,” I told her, groping uselessly for another ex-

cuse. “He feels things other people don’t.”

My best friend shut her coffee-brown eyes, clearly trying to

focus on my words. I could tell I was reaching her. If only I

could reach Roger. This is what I thought as I made my way to

the ladies’ room. Jeremiah was in the hallway, heading toward

me. He had a carton of liquor bottles in his arms, and I had to flatten myself against the wall to let him squeeze by. Was it my imagination, or did he press himself closer to me than he needed to? I sucked in my breath as he moved by, becoming as lean as

possible, and winning the spice of his skin, the fresh mowed-

lawn scent of his hair. My willpower nearly evaporated when he

gave me his trademark wink. What I wanted to do was knock

that box from his arms, replace those bottles of Cointreau and

Amaretto with something far more decadent: me.

But I’d promised myself to be good. To behave. In the ladies’,

I splashed cool water on my cheeks and tried to remember every

nice thing Roger had ever said to me. When I sat back on my

stool, Carolyn looked meaningfully at Jeremiah, and then back

at me.

“It’s not the weather,” she said, and I sighed and shook my

head.

“Do you remember Kai?” I urged, the man who hadn’t thought

fucking strippers was cheating. “Do you remember Gerald?” a

dog walker who had used our bedroom as his puppies’ own per-

sonal lavatory. “So Roger is a bit weather-sensitive. It’s perfectly reasonable for him to be with me, isn’t it?”

Carolyn repeated her mantra, dolefully, singing along with the

Bob Dylan song Jeremiah had programmed on the jukebox.

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“You don’t need a weatherman, Michelle, to know which way

the wind blows.”

Fall

“You
have
to like the fall,” I insisted; I was getting desperate.

We’d been together nine months now. I only had three more

to convince Roger not only to love me, but to love lush, green

California.

“The trees ought to be gold,” he said, and turned away.
Au-

tumn in New York
was on. He sighed meaningfully as the leaves in the trees fluttered down to earth. I stared at the screen without seeing the picture.

I had an image, or really a fantasy. One more Jeremiah fan-

tasy in a long list of favorites. Fall to me meant candles. And candles meant hot wax. Wax that might spill slowly over the lip of the ivory candle to create pretty patterns on my skin.

“
Oooh,
I like that,” Carolyn had said when I’d told her. “That’s kinky.”

I didn’t confess to Carolyn that in my fantasy, our favorite

bartender was pouring the wax, tipping the candle and watching

me flinch at the instant pain and pleasure that would follow. I could wear a bikini, I thought, and Jeremiah wouldn’t mind. He

wouldn’t say that you couldn’t wear a bikini in New York in the fall. He’d said, “Bad girl, wearing a bikini to Happy Hour. Get over my lap so I can spank you.”

The thought was difficult for me to push away. Whenever I

passed a store with candles in the window, I thought of what

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it would feel like to have the wax on my skin. Whenever I saw

Jeremiah, I wanted to ask him if he’d ever played with hot wax.

Wanted to see if there would be shock in his green eyes, or interest. It took every bit of strength that I had not to give in, not to break up with Roger and throw myself in front of Jeremiah. But

I’ve got willpower. And I used every last drop preparing for my biggest effort ever.

“I’m bringing fall to Roger,” I gushed to Carolyn.

“Why bother?” Turned out that she’d liked my candle fan-