Rendezvous With a Stranger (11 page)

      
I’m held close with his hands running over my skin.
 
Like silk, his touch moves the whole of me. So gently shrouded by his consuming energy, what shudders in me is not so much a climax as my giving way, giving up any claim I have to myself.

      
We remain like this for a long time.
 
I wonder if he sleeps, or is in that same wakeful contentedness that I am.
 
I hear the sound of his regular breath and sense it stir the hair on my neck.
 
I hold one of his hands in mine and kiss the skin and smell his sweat.
 
Mine’s merged with his.
 
When he pulls it back and strokes my hair, giving it gentle tugs, I know he’s awake and pouring out his strength to me.

 
     
“I masturbated this afternoon looking at the pictures you delivered to my office,” I finally break the silence.
 
I tell him this, inching my way toward intimacy we haven’t shared.

      
“I know,” he replies.

      
“How do you?” I turn around in his arms.
 
Running my hand over his face—the beard, the eyebrows and lips that allow my finger to follow their lines with my touch. My hand moves on to glide through the long loose hair that’s scattered freely on the pillow.

      
“Does it matter?” he asks.

      
“Yes, it matters very much.”
 
I speak softly but with passion.
 
I want him to hear me now, to understand how I yearn for even more than this.
 
“You’re in my apartment, my office, my vacations and my mind.
 
There seems to be no where you cannot go, and it scares me that you have such knowledge of my personal life and I don’t yet know your name.”

      
“That bothers you still.”

      
“I want more from you than you’re giving me, and if not from you, I need it from a man who will freely share with me.
 
I want to feel safe.”

      
“You’re safe with me.”

      
“Sexually I am, at least so far.
 
But can I trust a man who won’t reveal himself to me?”

      
“You have a lot of wants, Ellen Laurey,” he says.

      
“You know that’s not my real name,” I say.

      
“But I like the sound of it.
 
Some call you Lynnie.
 
Have you noticed the resemblance?”

      
“Oh ….” I’m sure of it now.
 
“You must know someone I know.”
 
I’ve pondered this idea many times, but haven’t had the courage to think he gleaned information about me from Isaac, perhaps, or some other friend, or even Robby.

      
“And maybe not.”

      
“But why such secrecy?” I ask.

      
“Because the secrecy arouses you.”

      
“And so does getting whipped and fucked and taken into alleys.
 
But is it necessary anymore, or do I mean so little to you?” I can’t believe that any man with his passion can be aloof from love.
 

      
“You’re not in a position to be making promises to any man. Perhaps when you’re free, when you’re ready, you’ll know more.”

      
“You want me to ….” I stop short of discussing my husband.
 
He likely knows about him too, but do I risk that?

      
“I want you to do nothing you’re not ready for. And you have time, Ellen; so do I. Relish what we have, that’s all that’s necessary.” He gives me a playful tweak on the nose.
 
“Now tell me about cumming this afternoon.”

      
I start to blush and would back away, but his arms are as unbending as the fence he bound me to.
 

      
“Tell me.”
 
He looks so serious, like this really matters.

      
“You really shouldn’t be in my office or prying into my life.”

      
“But I have been there and I
am
prying into your life, and you love it.”
   

      
“But …”

      
“Tell me how the pictures aroused you.”

      
He compels me with the gentle-firm sound of his words.
 
“You force me into things,” I reply, making it sound like a protest.

      
He chuckles.
 
But when he finishes his face turns grim.
 
“Tell me how you got off.”

      
“Maybe you should have had a camera trained on me.”
 
I suddenly grow anxious, remembering those photographs lying in my bottom desk drawer—I should have brought them home.
 
“Who was that with the camera?”

      
“Tell me, Ellen, about your masturbating,” he insists, as though I owe him the full story.
 

      
“You won’t let this rest, will you?”

      
“And you’re dying to spill it out.”

      
He always seems to have the upper hand and I allow it so easily.
 
He smacks my ass and grabs it hard, his eyes glowing with fire.

      
I blush again and begin to speak.
 
“I was on the floor, like you were standing over me.
 
I imagined you there commanding my every move.
 
Crouching at your feet, I threw my skirt up over my ass and lowered my panties.
 
Then with as many fingers as I could manage, I fucked my cunt and asshole until I came.”

      
He smiles, the picture as vivid and lewd to him as it is to me. “You must have been preparing for me tonight,” he says, as his finger probes my recently probed ass.

      
I shake my head.
 
“How could I know?”

      
His expression looks like a blank shrug.
 
“You knew,” he says, “just like I know you. Count on that, Ellen Laurey.
 
I think it will lead you when you’re swimming with contradictions.”

      
I couldn’t have better described my weeks with him, than
“swimming with contradictions.”
 
But now, the contradictions seem to be fading from my view and the picture of myself is getting clearer.
 
I’m not yet ready to jump off bridges, and I’m not wanting to fall down mountainsides because I’m going too fast without a guide.
 
But I am finding in the stranger’s arms a steadiness that suggests he plans to be that guide I need—even if I’m not completely ready for him.

      
We kiss and hold each other, and remain silent, and that’s really all I need.

      
The phone rings as I return to the apartment from my day at classes.
 
I rush to answer it and find a familiar voice on the other end.
 

      
“Isaac, how’s Greece!”

      
“Warm and friendly and very sexy, how about you?”

      
“The same,” I reply.
 

      
“My, you’re sounding sassy.”

      
“I’m feeling sassy, losing my grip on Robby,” I announce.

      
“Oh?”

      
“It’s over.
 
I decided it last night.” I don’t tell him about being in the stranger’s arms—in fact not a word about the stranger to him again after his last cautions.

      
“So, you’re in the arms of another man—not that guy without the name, I hope.”

      
“Oh, he has a name, but he has nothing to do with my decision.
 
I’ve just come to some important conclusions.”

      
“You tell Rob?”

      
“No, not yet, and maybe not for a while.
 
I’m getting used to the idea of leaving him, and before I let him spin his yarns trying to change my mind, I want to get comfortable with it.”

      
“Makes sense,” Isaac replies.
 
“So, I guess I can’t call him up and let him sob on my shoulder?”

      
“Don’t you dare.”

      
He laughs.
 
“Don’t worry, Lynnie.
 
I’ve always liked you better and I’ll certainly take your side.
 
He’ll probably have Jeff and Sandra, and you’ll have Grace. And …”

      
“You’re already divvying up my friends; you want to divvy up the china and furniture too?”

      
I see him smirking, an effervescent one that tickles me plenty.
 
We had good sex.
 
I remember that too.
 
I certainly hope he’s not thinking reunions.

      
“How about a date?” he asks.

      
“You’re in Greece,” I remind him.

      
“Not with me, Carolyn.
 
With Malcom Bridges, Archeology Dept.”

      
“How can you arrange blind dates from abroad?” I’m incredulous.

      
“I just talked to him; has this stuffy banquet thing he has to attend and he wants someone warm on his arm.”

      
“But I don’t know him.”

      
“That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you.”

      
“Isaac, no blind dates.”

      
“Ah, just strangers off the street, I see.
 
Well then, why don’t you look him up and then decide.
 
It’s just a thought, anyway.
 
You’re leaving your husband, but you don’t want another man.
 
Maybe that’s a sane thing to do, but you’ll get boring like all the other women I know who are trying to swear off men.”

      
“So that happens in Greece too?”

      
“Not that I’ve noticed so far, that’s why I’m staying here forever.”

      
“Are you really?
 
Then I can take over your apartment.”

      
“Yes, well, that’s in my dreams, for when I don’t have to work anymore and money’s not an object.
 
So far, no one’s paying me to stay here after April, so I suppose we’ll either have to get back together, or you’ll …” he clears his throat, “… you’ll be on your way.
 
But hey, that’s a long way for both of us. Why don’t you try Malcom? He’s a sweet bear.”

      
“Maybe I will,” I reply.

      
I am feeling odd deciding not to be married.
 
It’s hardly different from the way I’ve felt all summer and fall being on my own in the city. It’s not as if I were married for twenty years and ending it.
 
I suppose we never really got started and that’s rather sad.
 
I know there won’t be a lot of time left in the A-frame—and that saddens me most.
 
I try to tell myself I’m not the woodsy type, but the truth is, I picked the place, decorated it and loved it much more than Robby ever would.
 

I sigh to myself realizing that all this sadness gets me nowhere.
 
It’s hardly productive and since I figure it’s way too soon to hear from the stranger again, I look up Malcom Bridges in the campus directory and make the call.

g

      
I had no idea the Archeology Dept. had such great parties.
 
This is hardly a banquet; more like the most plush cocktail party I’ve seen in years.
 
All this for a lot of dusty rock hounds.
 

      
Malcom is as impressive as the party.
 
Isaac didn’t lie calling him a “sweet bear.” He’s burly and robust, with a hearty laugh, a gleam in his eyes, and a bit of lust seeing me walk out of the apartment dressed in my newest cocktail purple.
 
This one fits tight just about everywhere, making sure I wouldn’t eat a thing for almost two days before my date. Apparently, I succeeded in looking svelte.
 
With feet tucked into 3 ½ inch pumps, I sashay well.
 
I know he notices and that pleases me.
 
It’s nicer still when we have a pleasant conversation with hardly any effort.
 
If only all my associations with men could be this easy.
 
The only problem is that Malcom could always be a dear friend, but he’s an unlikely lover.

      
I’m enjoying myself on his arm, treating myself to hors d’oeuvres I haven’t seen in years—might even blow the look of the dress if I’m not careful, but Malcom would never care.
 
He’s having a jolly time—a teetotaler to boot.
 
Though he might be as sober as an old maid, he’s full of wit and can’t help but put me in a terrific mood.
 
I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much, or met so many people in khakis.
 

      
It’s nearly eleven before Malcom stops joking long enough to take a breath.
 
We’re on the patio of the department head’s fine-looking mansion in the hills.
 
Despite the fierce chill in the air, the breeze is a relief from the sweltering, smoky crowd inside.
 
Malcom breathes deep like it’s the last he’ll ever take.
 

      
“Let me know if you get cold,” he says.

      
“I will in a few minutes.
 
But aren’t these stars magnificent?”
 
I stare up and he does the same.
 
His silence makes me wonder if there’s something even more sober inside.
 
However, he wouldn’t be the kind to dwell on brooding thoughts.
 

      
Looking inside at the warm glow of light and the chattering people, I’m suddenly shaken.
 
I look twice, spotting a long ponytail swaying against a man’s broad shoulders.
 

      
“You’ve seen a ghost?” Malcom suggests watching me peer incredulously into the house.

      
“I’m not sure.”

      
I grab his arm to steady myself, my legs grow weak, and of course my pussy throbs as though I’m about to be fucked.
 
“Tell me,” I whisper in Malcom’s ear, “you know that man?”
 
I point to the pony-tailed man just beyond my reach, he’s turned enough so I see is face and have no doubt he’s my stranger.

      
“Sure,” he says, “That Riley, Nicholas Riley.
 
Professor in the Department.
 
Does research on primitive cultures, one of the best.”

      
A name.
 
He does have a name, though I’m not sure if I’m glad that I know.

      
By the time I have my bearings again and ask to go inside, the stranger’s beyond my reach.
 
But I do know his name.

      
I return to Isaac’s apartment an hour later, still in shock.
 
I’m not sure what it means having suddenly attached a life to my indulgent wet dream.
 
It makes him real to know he’s as much a colleague as a sex partner, an academic as a dangerous intruder.
 
It gives him substance in my mind that hasn’t been there before, though in one subtle sense I’m discontented with the truth.
 
I prayed we’d get closer and certainly this is a gap that must be breached, but I wonder if it makes my stranger less thrilling in my twisted fantasies.

      
For several days I ponder the possibilities of Nicholas Riley, “Nick” Riley to his department and friends.
 
I look him up in the computer records.
 
There he is, picture and all: background, education—a Ph.D., academic credits, a dozen trips to the Far East and Africa, and a dozen more to Mexico.
 
Still, with all this very interesting information there’s not a thing about his sex life, about raiding women’s boudoirs, invading their minds, absconding with their decency and adding to the decline of civilization with sexually deviant behavior.
 
In all his official files, he’s just one of the good-old guys, an eccentric scoundrel with a taste for domination in his personal habits.
 
Of course my stranger would be a man’s man in a man’s world.
 
He’s a nightmare and miracle worker in mine.

      
I bide my time waiting for him to appear again, wondering what I’ll do with my information.
 
A week passes and nothing.
 
I wonder if he saw me at the party and suddenly decided to end our rendezvous.
 
This seems totally silly.
 
If anything, it only enhances the possibilities of our affair continuing.
 
I know that by instinct, just the way he knows me.

      
The eighth day without a visit, I attend one of his sections, Ancient Cultures, an Intro class taught in the arena theatre, at least a hundred students and plenty of places to hide behind busy note-taking students.

      
Nicholas “Nick” Riley weaves an adventurous tale about the study of pre-history—mesmerizingly direct, pointed, funny, filled with anecdotes he’s collected for years, and ripe with clues for term-papers even the laziest of students can’t help but note.
 
I had no idea I’d be admiring him as much for his teaching style as I do his sexual inventiveness.
 
My only question is why … why in back alleys and basements, why hushed instructions on the phone, surreptitious notes?
 
He confuses me more now as a real human being than he did as a myth.

      
Half way through the hour, he sees me.
 
His eyes look to the high corner of the arena and catch my glance.
 
Maybe he’d already seen me, but I doubt that, seeing just the hint of a startled expression in his eyes.
 
That moment is easily disguised with a flippant joke as he turns away from my gaze and strides to the other side of the platform, continuing his brilliant rhetoric without missing a beat.

      
I scoot from the arena at the sound of the first bell, before Nicholas Riley has stopped talking.
 
While I’m long gone before he can attempt to find me, I have the feeling that he didn’t try.
 
He knows how to have me if he wants me.

      
It’s been ten days since the stranger surprised me in my bed, and just a few after I viewed his lecture.
 
I wonder if he’s had his fill of me.
 
Have I come too close to getting inside him?
 
Is he one of those gallant but shallow men that flees at the first signs of real intimacy?
 
Is he only a series of brilliant one-night stands, like the inspired one-liners of his lecture?
 
I know better than to believe any of this, but I can’t help rationalizing the last ten days that way.
 
And now that he knows I know—

      
I’m walking through familiar streets, taking a long walk downtown just to clear my head.
 
When I sense someone driving up beside me, I keep walking haughtily, unsuspecting of anyone I know.
 
This isn’t exactly the best neighborhood, but it’s the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day. Surely it can’t be dangerous, I tell myself. My conclusion inspires my confidence even if I’ve reached an erroneous one. When the car is at my side, I turn to see the a well-aged green Mercedes with the stranger driving.