Madam of Maple Court (16 page)

All the way home in the car, Pam relived her fabulous evening. Now she understood why a woman would pay for sex, and maybe she understood Marcy's business a little better. What if she were never able to have another orgasm? Would she pay for it? Twenty-four hours ago she'd have said no without hesitation. Now she wasn't quite so sure. Questions whirled in her mind. Always questions.

The following morning she threw on some clothes and retrieved the Sunday
Times
from the end of her driveway. She made a pot of coffee and tried to concentrate on the Arts and Leisure section but she found herself frequently rereading an article. Her mind kept drifting to Gary. One evening next week, he'd said. The anticipation was almost more than she could stand. They wouldn't be able to meet until after seven, when Gary got home from work. She thought about offering to pick him up in the city but rejected that idea. She wasn't going to look like some poor little waif pressing her nose against the candy store window hoping for a chocolate bar. Ugly analogy.

At about two Pam looked over the house to make sure it would make the best
impression on Rob Sherwood. As usual, it was perfect. Outside the grass was
trimmed and the landscaping in tip-top shape. Flowers abounded. She especially liked the late parrot tulips and early tiger lilies. A few flowers remained on the azaleas, and the rhododendrons were in full bloom. In a few weeks the wild roses that provided a privacy hedge between her property and the neighbors' would be in full bloom. The early cultivated ones were already showing color and the carefully cultivated ones in the rose garden would begin to open. Soon the landscapers would also begin to add summer annuals and perennials.

Since it was unseasonably warm for late May, Pam went upstairs and changed into a pair of tailored lightweight white slacks and a caramel-colored short-sleeved silk shirt with thin coral stripes. She added only a strand of coral beads and matching earrings and finished the outfit off with tan sandals. Her only make-up was pale coral lipstick. She'd started to add blush and discovered that, possibly thanks to the previous evening, she didn't need any.

At just after three the doorbell rang. She fluffed her hair with her fingers and opened it to find a nice-looking stocky man dressed in khaki slacks and a navy polo shirt. He had a tightly trimmed beard and mustache, both as inky black as his razor-trimmed straight hair. His eyes were so deep brown as to be almost black as well. Although he was build like a fire hydrant, his pianist hands moved with unconscious grace. Behind him, a sleek, British racing green Jaguar convertible stood in the driveway. "You must be Rob," she said softly. "Gome in."

He walked through the front door and looked around, obviously both appraising and appreciating. "Thanks. I have to say that the drive up here was beautiful, but your home surpasses everything I saw on the way. What I've seen of it is magnificent, both inside and out."

"I'm glad. My husband and I worked very hard on it."

"Oh. I got the impression from Marcy that you weren't married."

"He was killed a while ago in a traffic accident." That had become her stock answer.

"I'm terribly sorry."

"Thanks." She found what little pain was left had been further dulled by the new life she'd just begun. "It's been six months. Let me show you the rest of the house."

They wandered through the downstairs and ended up in the kitchen. "Can I get you something? Soda, beer, wine, a cocktail maybe?"

"I'd love a beer if you have one."

She opened the double-wide refrigerator. "I've got quite an assortment. Why don't you inspect the supply and pick one yourself?"

"Wow. That's some collection," he said, staring inside.

"Although my husband didn't drink, he liked to keep a good supply around for visitors and there's no way I could drink it all."

After a long look, he picked a Budweiser. "You can take the kid out of the Bronx, but you can't take away his Bud." Pam pulled a Heineken from the fridge and got herself a glass. When she raised an questioning eyebrow and motioned to the glass, he shook his head, unscrewed the cap on his Bud, and took a long pull from the bottle.

"So you're a local kid who made good," she said as she poured.

"I'm a local kid who got lucky. I was a complete geek in school but a few friends and I had some good ideas, and bingo. Forest Technology."

"Rob Sherwood. Of course. Like Sherwood Forest, I presume. Is the Rob for Robin?"

"Very good guess. Actually my name is Elmont. Elmont Sherwood. What could my parents have been thinking? Why couldn't I have been Michael or James?" He looked a bit wistful. "Anyway, the kids picked up on the Sherwood, then added forest, then moved on to Robin Hood. When I was in elementary school I got teased almost all the time, and if it wasn't about my name it was for my good grades. I was always built like a tree stump and since I wasn't athletic and wore thick glasses I was an easy target. The kids called me Rob for short and kept after me to tell them where Maid Marian was. They kept asking me whether I'd ever 'made Marian.' For the most part I ignored it all, but eventually the nickname Robin stuck. I always hated Elmont, so I kept Rob."

Pam pictured a geeky little boy being teased by his peers and wondered how she would have survived. "No glasses now?"

"Thank God for contacts and more recently laser surgery. Now I can see well most of the time, although I still need glasses for reading small print."

"It's amazing what lenses have done for self-esteem."

"You, too?"

"Sure. Doesn't everyone use them?" They laughed together. "What exactly does Forest Technology do?"

"We make semiconductors and… suffice it to say that we make computer stuff." She was a little miffed that he seemed to treat her like a featherbrain, but he corrected that impression quickly. "I don't mean to gloss over what my company does, but it's really boring and not worth spending this wonderful afternoon talking about. A lot of it is government work and if I told you, I'd have to kill you." They laughed together. "If you want the spiel I give visiting royalty, the company dog-and-pony show, I can give it to you, but I'd rather see the back of your house."

"Bring your beer and I'll give you the Maple Court dog-and-pony show."

"Wow," Rob said as Pam opened the sliding door to the patio. "This is as beautiful as Marcy said." In silence he looked over the outdoor kitchen area and admired the eight-burner grill. "I have a little hibachi on my tiny twenty-seventh-floor deck. God, I'd love to have a setup like this."

"Vin, my husband, liked to cook out here sometimes on the weekends in the summer. It's got a smoker and there's even a burner especially designed for a wok. It's sad that there isn't more great weather for this stuff, although he had jalousies built so this part of the patio can be closed off and used in all but the worst weather."

She guided him out into the yard. He quickly kicked off his loafers and walked through the grass barefoot. "I remember summers when I was a kid, when I spent long hours in the Botanical Gardens. I memorized the scientific names of dozens of trees and flowers from the signs."

"I thought all you geeky types spent your time inventing computer programs."

His grin was immediate. "That, too."

They wandered to the pool. "This is wonderful. Does it require a lot of upkeep?"

"Not really. It's lightly salted so it sort of makes its own chlorine. The guy comes once a month to fix the chemicals and that's about it. It's heated, too, although I don't keep the heat on except when I expect to be using it."

She showed him the eight-person hot tub surrounded with rocky ledges. The water gurgled from it over a long series of landscaped terraces, then into the main pool. "I can turn on the heater in the spa if you'd like to take a dip."

He dipped his hand into the water, then said, "If you don't mind, I'd like that. I live in an apartment the city and miss this kind of thing."

"Sure, that would be great. Did you bring a suit? If not, there are a few in one of the cabanas that might fit you."

"Not necessary. I just need to get my stuff out of my car."

"Great. I'll just be a minute."

Fifteen minutes later, Pam had changed into a flattering deep cranberry one-piece bathing suit and Rob was dressed in a pair of tight black trunks. Pam found herself gazing at his well-developed body, thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with business.
Is that what one good session of great sex does to a person? Does everything become erotically charged
?

They walked to the edge of the hot tub and Pam lifted the thermometer out of the water. It was now at about a hundred degrees. "Should be perfect," she said, stepping in. Rob followed and stepped in and settled onto the ledge, shoulder-deep in water. "This is wonderful," he said with an almost animal moan.

"Want the bubbles?" she asked.

"Not really. I like the quiet."

"Me, too," she admitted as she settled opposite him, then at his urging, moved around until they were about a foot apart. They talked about several topics and quickly found that neither of them were sports fans, both liked very light classical music and western movies.

They'd been talking for almost an hour, moving between the hot tub and the pool, before Rob said, "You're an interesting woman, Pam, and I find that I like you very much."

"You're quite a guy yourself," Pam said, her nerves tingling.
Cut that out
, she thought.
You're thinking about him like a sex partner He's a business associate and nothing more
.

Rob looked into her eyes and immediately disabused her of that idea. "Okay, let's let the eight-hundred-pound gorilla out of the cage. I gather that you're not one of Marcy's girls."

Like so many things lately, she realized that she wasn't as shocked as she would have been just a month before. "No. I'm not."

"Pity. I like women like you who are smart and not afraid to show it."

She decided to be frank. "That surprises me."

"That I like smart women?"

"No, the juxtaposition of wondering whether I was a prostitute and liking smart women." At Rob's puzzled look she continued, "I would have thought that looks were what men wanted. You know, big breasts, skinny hips, and long legs."

"Shows how much you know. Sure, lots of men go for Barbie dolls like the ones in the porn flicks, but for me, there's so much more. I couldn't have sex with an airhead, no matter how gorgeous her body was."

"I guess I don't know much about what appeals to men."

"What about your husband? What appealed to him?"

She thought about Liza and realized that she couldn't answer that question. "I've no idea, really."

His nod was quick, then he asked, "How do you know Marcy?"

Pam wondered how much to tell a potential client of her party business. She quickly decided that the more she lied about things, the harder it would become to remember what she'd told to whom. "He was a customer of hers," she said simply, then briefly told him about finding out about Vin's relationship with Club Fantasy and eventually meeting Marcy. "So my friendship with Marcy is pretty recent," Pam finished. "I found that I liked her a lot from the first time I met her. There was an instant rapport and it surprised the hell out of me."

"That's what makes her so good at what she does. She's quite a woman. Her sister, too." He chuckled. "You'd never believe they're twins. Despite her children, Jenna's still slim and stylish. Marcy is so soft and cuddly, sort of like you." He reached over and played with a strand of Pam's hair. She ought to gently let him know she wasn't that kind of woman, but was that completely true? Since last evening she had no idea about the erotic side of her nature. Now… Gould someone change so drastically in just one evening?

Again she decided to be frank. "Rob, I don't know about this."

"No strings. I find you very attractive and sexy and I didn't want to let something pass without giving it a try. If you want to say no, that's fine, and it has nothing to do with whether I use your house for entertaining this summer or not. That's a done deal. The other is up to you."

She didn't know which made her happier, the money for using her house or Rob finding her attractive. Who was she kidding? The attractive part won hands down. "Until six months ago I was a suburban housewife with a plain vanilla sex life and I was content. Then Vin was killed and I languished in misery for a while."

He continued to twirl the strand of her short hair around his knuckle, occasionally brushing her cheek. "That's understandable."

"More recently I've started to date and the whole thing is new to me. I don't know how to act. Not socially, that's never been a problem. It's this new sexual freedom folks have. Vin and I dated through college, and of course made love, but there was never anyone else. I wasn't promiscuous then and now I'm not sure about the rules. If you make love to one man, is that a commitment of some kind? My new situation confuses me totally."

"And gets you a little excited, too," he said, a slight smile curving the corners of his mouth.

She smiled ruefully. "That, too. I don't know what that says about the real me."

"What would you like it to say?"

"That I'm a real person, not a sex object. That I like people, getting to know them and interacting with them outside, and now inside the bedroom."

"You've made love recently and now you wonder what you've been missing."

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. "Why do you say that?"

"It's true, isn't it? I read people pretty well. You're sending all kinds of confusing vibes. Yes, and no, and yes again. I don't want to insult you, just make my wishes known. I find you very desirable."

"I'm very complimented and very confused. About myself mostly."

"Good. That's a first step. I've got an idea. How about we kiss? Just that. Then we go out for some dinner and see what develops. No strings, no nothing. Just dinner. And what's for dessert? You get to decide, but I can't promise that I won't try to convince you that I'd make a great sweet treat afterward."