Tempted (42 page)

Half asleep, I stumble
into my bedroom, shrug off my f
all clothes and get into a tank top and boxers, my preferred sleeping ensemble for the goose-down oasis where I sleep.
 
From the other room, I hear the couch creaking and hope that David is stretching out comfortably.
 
The next morning
,
I arise with a smile on my face.
 
I can feel it, and it fills me with incredible gratitude to be smiling again after all the weeks of being doom and gloom and teary.

David needs to leave at about 3:00pm to fetch Mom and the menagerie.
 
I hope and pray that her buddies have not stuffed the animals with junk food this time.
 
It made for quite a mess after the fact, when they came back from their last vacation.

We have about seven
hours before David needs to leave, and we’d decided the night before that we want to clean the place spic and span for Mom, as well as pick some flowers and veggies from the garden
,
and do some grocery shopping before she comes home.
 
David is still asleep when I tiptoe into the kitchen to make coffee.
 
Or rather, when I shuffle in wearing my oversized Bugs Bunny sli
ppers for the first time since s
pring.
 
I am still in my tank top and boxers
,
and the warm sunlight beaming in through the kitchen windows feels like Mother Nature’s kiss on my skin.

Everything is going marvelously until I hit the wrong light switch, and instead of turning on the dim light over the sink, I’ve flipped on the garbage disposal.
 
I don’t recall the last time I used it
,
and it immediately starts making strange and disturbing noises.
 
David jumps, now completely wide awake.
 
I apologize and turn it off, but as long as he is up
,
he wants to know what is going on with the disposal
,
in case he needs to fix it before picking up Mom.
 

He tries the disposal for a moment and appears concerned.

“Oh, that’s not good.”
 
He grabs a flashlight to peer down into the unit, but can find nothing foreign rattling around.
 
He then empties the contents of the under sink cupboard, crawls below to tinker with something, and tells me to turn on the faucet.
 
When I do so
,
a geyser erupts from the sink
,
and I am instantly drenched with water, looking like a contestant in a wet t-shirt contest
–
one wearing cartoon character slippers.
 
I turn off both the faucet and disposal instantly.

David emerges from beneath the sink, and seeing my bedraggled condition
, he
proceeds to laugh uncontrollably.
 
In short, I’m soaked.
 
He grabs a clean kitchen towel and starts to blot my shirt and hair.
 
Something sparks and we both freeze.
 
A moment later our mouths embrace with all the pent up passion of the last months and years.
 
Neither of us says a word as we begin to claw at each other’s clothing.
 
In one deft motion
,
David has tossed off my tank top and is cupping my breast with one hand
,
and pulling my dripping hair back with the other.
 
His eager pecks begin a trail from my mouth down to my breasts and he kneels before me, kneading my breasts and tonguing my belly.
 
I pull his shirt off and begin running my hands through his soft mop of hair.
 
It feels incredible.
 
Everything he is doing feels incredible.
 

A moment later
,
he scoops me up in his arms and takes me to the couch, lying me down and kissing me like I’ve never been kissed before.
 
He reaches to remove my boxers just as I go for the drawstring of his PJ’s.
 
In so doing
,
we both get in each other’s way, and giggle and kiss all the more in consequence.
 
His fingers easily slide up through the bottom of my boxers
,
and he finds me desirous and willing.
 
I moan my approval as his fingers toy with me inside and out.
 
Involuntarily
,
my hips begin to move
,
and I stroke the outside of his fly, delighted to find him so hard and aroused.
 
He removes his fingers in order to take off my shorts.
 
I am totally naked and incredibly turned on.
 
I want this.
 
Very much.

For a flicker of a moment
,
I think back to my deep and earnest conversations with Alex about my desire to keep sex within the sanctity of marriage.
 
And here I am
,
about to do just the opposite.
 
It’s easy to be an idealist when the man you lust after is thousands of miles away.
 
It’s quite another thing when his fingers are preparing you to receive him.
 
I know full well that if I want David, it will have to be on his terms, or not at all.
 
That’s a compromise I’m willing to make.
 
At least I tell myself so, as my loins burn and I lay sprawled before him, as have so many others who’ve fallen for his insurmountable charms.

He stands next to the couch admiring me
,
and I am grateful he is pleased.

“Damn, Cece.
 
You’re fucking gorgeous,” he says.
 
And in an instant, he has dropped his pajama bottoms, and is towering over me, stroking his erection.
 
Just as he is about to lower himself onto me and into me, the phone rings.
 
It’s Mom’s ringtone
, which
threatens to ruin the mood.
 
We both stall for a moment, filling
the
time by caressing one another.
 
It goes to voicemail
,
but she does not leave a message.
 
When the phone stops
,
we continue where we left off
–
his fingers back inside me, and now my hand stroking his throbbing cock.
 
The phone rings again.
 
We both hesitate, waiting for Mom to leave a message.
 
Again, no voicemail.
 
And again, our hands busy themselves with pleasuring one another.
 
The phone rings a third time.
 
We both look at each other and he nods.
 
I answer the phone.

“Hello
,
is this Claire Eden?”

“Yes?”

“This is Delores Feldman, Head Administrator at Redwood Meadows.
 
I’m calling about your mother.”

“Uh oh, what has she done this time?” I ask, trying to sound playful, but aggravated as heck that Mom would be responsible for thwarting my moment with David.

“My dear. I’m sorry to have to tell you.
 
Your mother has passed.”

“
Every warrior ho
pes a good death will find him.

“When I first heard that quote, while watching the film
Legends of the Fall
, it immediately resonated with me.
 
Like many people, I have faced a variety of life challenges that threatened to crush me.
 
In fact, I have felt like a warrior most of my adult life
–
usually like one of the formidable female characters from
Lord of the Rings
.
 
The idea of having a ‘good death’ might seem incongruous to some, but to me
,
it illustrates a life lived to the fullest, even in death.

“Lana Price Eden was a warrior in her own right.
 
Years ago, she battled cancer and won.
She dealt with the loss of a child, my sister Erica, who passed at the age of 23.
 
Mom helped my father build a successful investment brokerage during some awful economic times.
 
She was even kidnapped briefly as a young child
,
by someone who opposed a piece of legislation her father was trying to pass when he was in local government.

“I got the idea Mom, coming from a large family as she did, rarely felt special, or that she mattered much.
 
I think today’s congregation tells a different story.
 
She loved her friends at church and Redwood Meadows.
 
In fact
,
she talked about all of you constantly, sometimes too much.”

The crowd giggles.

“She also loved David.
 
I’m sure some of you have heard about him till your ears were about to bleed.
 
What can I say?
 
Mom had the hots for him.
 
Can you blame her?

“
And despite being a self-described animal loather, she came to adore the little brood of pets I have amassed over the last few years.
 

“Mom
had impeccable taste and classic style.
 
She always wanted to own a dress shop, but never quite got around to it.
 
Instead, she shared her sense of beauty in the garden.
 
It would be impossible for me to look at the foliage on my property without seeing Mom in every leaf and petal.
 

“And for those who didn’t know, she very recently began a new career as a talk radio show commentator.
 
With great popularity, I might add.

“In closing, I just want to say how grateful I am to have had the mother that I did.
 
She was always there for me, whether I liked it or not.”

More chuckles from the audience.

“I also have to add how grateful I am for David.
 
He didn’t just add to my mom’s
joy, he multiplied it.
 
He
brought out in her levels of youthfulness and
ebullience
and kindness I’d never seen before.
 
He truly is the son she never had.
 
And she couldn’t have loved him more.”

David is beside himself, sobbing uncontrollably, sitting alone, clutching Daphne
,
who insisted on coming to show her respects.
 

“As we exit the church
,
I want to play a song that r
emind
me of Mom
,
who would never go out without her pearls
–
Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls
.
”
 
It’s classy, just like her.
 
Thank you all so much for coming today.
 
And I hope, when your time comes, you too, find a good death.
 
Thank you.”

* * *

It’s surreal having absolutely no family at all.
 
And it didn’t really dawn on me till someone pointed it out at Mom’s funeral, that I have no immediate living relatives
–
no parents, no siblings, no kids.
 
Though Mom and Dad had plenty of sisters and brothers, they all live in other states
,
so I’d never gotten to know them or their kids.
 
Right now, the closest thing I have to family is David, and he’s been very distant.
 

In the days leading up to the funeral
,
he was a dream
–
supportive, loving, solicitous.
 
We spent every night just cuddling, running our hands through one another’s hair, kissing deeply and embracing so completely that you would think we would pass right through each other’s bodies.
 
Though all of it was very physical and intimate, it didn’t feel at all sexual, and we didn’t actually engage in any kind of
rea
l ‘sex.’
 
We just fondled each other with love, and often with tears.