Sweet Memories (34 page)

She raised her arms above her head experimentally. When she did this, her breasts lifted with her arms, as they’d never done before. She pirouetted swiftly to the left, watching, to be rewarded by the sight of her breasts coming right along with her instead of swaying pendulously several inches behind the movement of her trunk.

A marvelous, appreciative smile burst across her face.

I am female. l am as beautiful as I feel. And today I feel utterly beautiful.

She hooked the bathing suit top behind her back, then lifted her arms to tie the strings behind her neck, examining the way the concealing triangles of sheeny green covered her breasts. She ran her fingertips along the deep V, down the freckled skin to the spot where the two triangles met. There was scarcely any cleavage! The wonder of it was almost enough to make her high!

She hated to slip the white terry pants and jacket on and cover herself up. Oh, glorious, glorious liberation! How wonderful you feel!

She packed a drawstring bag with sunscreen, towels, hair lifter, makeup, cocoa butter, shampoo, a pair of jeans and a brand new bra made of scalloped blue lace. Her thirty days of wearing the firm support bra were over. This little wisp of femininity was what she’d long craved. While stuffing her belongings in the bag, she realized even this was a new experience to be savored, for she’d never gone skipping off with boys to the beach when she was a girl. There was so much catching up to do!

By the time ten o’clock arrived, Theresa was not only ready, she was a totally self-satisfied ready.

The van turned into the driveway, and she stepped out onto the back step to await him. Through the windshield she saw him smile and raise a palm, then shut off the ignition, open the door and walk toward her.

He was wearing his aviator sunglasses, white, tight swimming trunks beneath an unbuttoned navy blue shirt with three zippered patch pockets, white buttons and epaulettes. The shirt’s long sleeves were rolled up, exposing his arms from the elbow down, and its tails flapped in the light breeze as he approached. He moved around the front of the van in a loose-jointed amble, keeping his eyes on her face until he stood on the apron of the step below her, looking up. Lazily, he reached up to remove the glasses while every cell in I her body became energized by his presence.

“Hello, sweets.”

“Hello, Brian.” She wanted very badly to call him an endearment, but the expressive way she spoke his name actually became an endearment in itself.

Was it she who reached first, or he? All Theresa knew later was that one moment she stood two steps above him, and the next, she was in his arms, sharing a hello kiss beneath the bright June sun at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. She, the timid introvert who’d often wondered why some women were blessed with lives in which scenes like this were taken for granted, while others could only lie in their lonely beds at night and dream of such bliss.

It wasn’t a passionate kiss. It wasn’t even very intimate. But it swept her off the step and against his partially exposed chest while she circled his neck with both arms, captured in such a fashion that she was looking down at him. He lifted his lips, brushed them caressingly over hers, then dipped his head to bestow another such accolade to the triangle of freckles that showed above the zippered white terry coverup. “Mmm ... you smell good.” He released her enough to allow her breasts and belly to go sliding down his body until she stood before him, smiling up at his admiring, stunning, summer eyes.

“Mmm ... you do too.”

His hands rested on her hipbones. She was piercingly aware of it, even as they gazed, unmoving, into each other’s faces and stood in broad daylight, for any of the neighbors to see.

“Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready since six 
A.M.”

He laughed, rode his hands up her ribs and turned her toward the door. “Then get your stuff and let’s not waste a minute.”

Chapter Fifteen

THE VILLAGE GREEN APARTMENTS 
were tudor-trimmed stucco buildings arranged in a horseshoe shape around a dazzling aqua-and-white swimming pool. The grounds were wooded with old elms whose leafy branches drooped in the still summer morning. Theresa caught a glimpse of the pool as Brian passed it, then pulled around the far side of the second building. Glancing up, she saw small decks flanking the length of the stucco walls, and an occasional splash of crimson from a potted geranium in a redwood tub.

Inside, the halls were carpeted, papered and silent. Padding along with Brian at her shoulder, Theresa found herself unable to keep from watching his bare toes curl into each step as he walked. There was something undeniably intimate about being with a barefoot man. Brian’s feet were medium sized, shaded with hair on his big toes, and it struck her how much more angular a man’s foot was than a woman’s. His legs were muscular and sprinkled with a modicum of hair on all but the fronts and backs of his knees. He stopped before number 122, unlocked the door and stepped back.

“It’s not much yet, but it will be.”

She entered a living room with plush, bone-colored carpeting. Directly across from the door by which they’d entered was an eight-foot-wide sliding glass door decorated with an open-weave drapery that was drawn aside to give a view of the pool and surrounding grassy area. The room held one chocolate brown director’s chair, a cork-based lamp sitting beside it on the floor and nothing else except musical equipment: guitars, amplifiers, speakers as tall as Theresa’s shoulders, microphones, a reel-to-reel recorder, stereo, radio, tapes and records.

Forming an L in juxtaposition to the living room was a tiny galley kitchen with a Formica-topped peninsula counter dividing it from the rest of the open area. A short hall presumably led to the bathroom and bedroom beyond.

Theresa stopped in the middle of the carpeted expanse. It seemed very lonely and barren, and it made Theresa somehow sad to walk into the quiet emptiness and think about Brian here all alone, with no furniture, none of the comforts of home, nobody to talk to or to share music with. But she turned and smiled brightly.

“Home is where the heart is, they say.”

He, too, smiled. “So I’ve heard. Still, you can see why I invited you over to swim. It’s about all I’m equipped to offer.”

Oh, I wouldn’t say that,
 came the sudden impulsive thought. She shrugged, one thumb hooking the drawstring of the carryall bag that was slung over her shoulder. She glanced around his living room again. “Swimming is one of the few active pastimes I’ve enjoyed ever since I was little. I love it. Is all this equipment 
yours?”
 She ventured across to the impressive array of sound equipment, leaning forward to gaze into the smoked-glass doors of his component cabinet.

“Yup.”

“Wow.”

He watched her move from piece to piece, touching nothing until her eye was caught by a three-ring notebook lying open on the floor beside an old, beat-up-looking flat-top guitar. She knelt, examined the handwritten words, and looked up. “Your songbook?”

He nodded.

She turned the pages, riffling through them slowly, stopping here and there to hum a few bars. “It must have taken you years to collect all these.”

She found herself drawn to the sheets simply because they contained his handwriting, with which she’d grown so familiar during the past half year. The songs were arranged alphabetically, so she couldn’t resist turning to the 
Ss. S-A, S-E, S-L, S-O ...
 and there it was: “Sweet Memories.” Without realizing she’d done it, her fingers grazed the sheets feeling the slight indentation made by his ballpoint pen years ago.

Sweet memories of her own came flooding back. And for Brian, standing near, watching her, the same thing happened. He was transported back to New Year’s Eve, dancing with her in his arms, then curling her against his chest before a slow, golden fire. But it was shortly after ten o’clock on a June morning, and he’d invited her here to swim. He brought himself back from his concentrated study of the woman kneeling before him to ask, “Would you like to change into your suit?”

Reluctantly she left her musings. “Oh, I have it on. All I have to do is jump out of these.” She pinched the stretchy terry cloth and pulled it away from both thighs, while grinning up at him.

“Well, I’m ready if you are.”

“Just a minute. I think I’ll leave my sandals in here.” She rolled to a sitting position with one knee updrawn and began unbuckling the ankle strap. While she tugged at it, he moved closer to stand beside her and study the top of her head. She was terribly conscious of his chestnut-colored legs, sprinkled with hair, just at her elbow, and of his bare toes close to her hip.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a woman who’d wear toenail polish.” Her hands fell still for a second, then tugged again and the first sandal came free. As she reached for the second one, she raised her eyes to find him standing with arms akimbo, looking down at her, the front panels of his shirt held aside by his wrists. His bare chest drew her eyes almost magnetically.

“I’m trying a lot of new things these days that I’ve never had the nerve to try before. Why? Don’t you like it?”

He suddenly hunkered down, captured her foot and began removing her sandal. “I love it. You have the prettiest toes of any violin player I’ve ever gone swimming with.” The sandal dropped to the floor, and to Theresa’s astonishment, he carried the bare foot to his lips and kissed the underside of her big toe, then the soft, vulnerable skin of her instep. Her eyes flew open, and the blush began creeping up. Brian grinned and unconcernedly retained possession of her foot, lazily stroking its arch with a thumb. “Well, you said you were trying new things you’d never tried before, and I thought this might be one to add to your list.” This time, when his teeth gently nipped at the sensitive instep, her lips fell open and her eyes widened.

Theresa stared at him. Her throat had gone dry, and she was unable to move. When he’d lifted her foot, she’d lost her balance and teetered back, so sat now with elbows locked and both hands braced on the carpet behind her. Suddenly she realized her fingers were clutching the fibers. Though her eyes were riveted on Brian’s face, she was arousingly aware of his pose. Balancing on the balls of his feet, his knees were widespread, but pointed at her so that it was all she could do to keep her eyes from dropping to the insides of his thighs. She knew by some magical telepathy, though she hadn’t looked, that his inner thighs were smoothed of hair, just as his knees were. The muscles of his legs were bulged and taut, his insteps curved like those of Achilles running. His unbuttoned shirt fell loose and wide at his hips. The elasticized fabric of his white bathing trunks was molded to his thighs and conformed to the masculine rises and ridges between his legs.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Theresa carefully withdrew her foot.

“I think we’d better go out,” she advised shakily.

“Right. Grab your bag.” Straightening those alarmingly close knees, he reached a hand down and tugged her to her feet. He rolled the sliding screen back and she moved out into the sun ahead of him, her senses so fully awakened by his nearness that even the sound of the vinyl rollers gliding in the track made her feel as if they’d just wheeled smoothly up her spinal column. How odd to be stepping into the intense heat of the late June sun, yet be shivering and experiencing the titillating effect of goose bumps rising up her arms and thighs.

There was nobody else in the pool area this early in the day. Yellow and white striped umbrellas were still closed, and the tubular plastic chairs and recliners were all pushed neatly under the tables. The concrete rectangle was surrounded by a broad stretch of thick green grass on all sides, and as Theresa crossed it, the cool blades tickled her bare toes.

The pool was stunningly clear, its surface shimmering slightly. In the aqua depths an automatic cleaning device snaked back and forth, back and forth, sweeping the pool floor.

Brian dipped one knee and stuck his toe in the water.

“It’s warm. Should we go in right away and work off our breakfasts?”

“I was too excited to eat breakfast.” Realizing what she’d said, she sucked on her lower lip and chanced a quick peek at the man beside her to find him gazing down benignly at her pink cheeks.

“Oh, really?”

“I’ll never succeed as a femme fatale, will I? I don’t think I was supposed to admit that.”

“A femme fatale would keep a man guessing. But one of the first things I liked about you was that you didn’t. I could read you as easily as you just read the words to ‘Sweet Memories’ in there. That 
is
 what you were reading, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder how many times I played it and thought of you during the past six months.”

He stood so near, Theresa thought she could feel nothing more than the auburn hairs on his arms entwined with the strawberry blond ones on her own. His eyes held a sincerity mixed with controlled desire, and she met it with an expression much the same. On the cool ceramic coping upon which they stood, his right foot eased over an inch until his toes covered hers, and Theresa wondered if a touch that innocent could release such a wellspring of response within her body, what must the carnal act inspire? His voice was deep and held a note of self-teasing. “There. Now we’re even. Whatever the male equivalent of the femme fatale is, I’m not it. I don’t want to hold any of my feelings back from you. I never wanted to, not since the first day I met you.”

“Brian, let’s go swimming. I’m dying of the heat ... whatever’s causing it.”

“Good idea. Especially since we have the place to ourselves for now.”

He moved to the end of the pool and cranked open one of the umbrellas, then angled its top toward the sun. She flung her tote bag on the tabletop, then unzipped her coverup, shrugged it off and tossed it over the back of a patio chair. With her back to Brian she shimmied the elastic waist of the matching terry pants down past her hips, then flung them, too, onto the chair.