Ann: A Love Story Ch. 55

"What about?" Ann asked, looking genuinely surprised by what I was saying.

"Maryam."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Maryam.

Just the thought of her made me smile. I couldn't close my eyes and imagine what she looked like, because I was driving. But I really didn't have to. Even though I'd only seen Maryam that one time, I couldn't get her out of my mind. Not since Ann had told me that Maryam had pinched her nipple when she was getting her massage the night before, and alluded to more that might have happened.

Maryam.

The image of Maryam as she walked towards us while we were waiting for the check to arrive was indelibly imprinted on my brain. She was an exotic goddess if ever I saw one. She stood between 5'7" and 5'8", which put her near six feet even with her 4-inch white spiked heels. She was a striking figure, starting with her beautiful brown eyes. They were very similar to Ann's, and that alone attracted me to her.

But Maryam was also similar to Ann in that she had a really hot body. They had the same general build, although Ann was a little shorter. They both had toned, athletic legs, and killer asses. And from what I could tell, they shared the same bra size. That is, if Maryam had worn a bra. She hadn't, and I could tell underneath her bright white terrycloth shorts jumpsuit that her nipples were hard like Ann's always seemed to be.

The one thing that seemed to be different was that Maryam had larger areolas; at least, that's what I thought I saw through the thin material of her outfit. And if she really did, I thought that fit her. I could see in my mind how they would frame her breasts perfectly, and I smiled to myself as I dreamed of what it would be like to see them in person. Or even better, how amazing it would be to suck on them, and play with them.

Yet, Maryam's exotic appearance was what stuck with me more than anything. She had very long, black hair; the silky mane shimmering in the dim lights as she moved. Her smooth, olive skin gave her kind of a Middle Eastern aura, although I remember her accent as being anything but. My guess was she was from the states, but her parents, or their parents, weren't. Not that that mattered. I just found Maryam very hot, and very sexy.

And, I thought she was very out of place in Utah. So much so, that I actually said that aloud as I was having my short daydream about her while I drove.

Ann giggled and said, "You seem a little smitten by Maryam."

"Smitten?" I said with a laugh.

"Well...she IS very attractive. I can see why you'd feel that way."

"I'm not smitten...where the hell did THAT come from? And for that matter, who in the world even uses the word 'smitten' anymore?"

Ann giggled again and said, "Well, I just used it...and it might be because you were just talking about her to yourself. I mean, I AM sitting here naked...you'd think that would be enough to keep your mind on ME. It's a good thing I'm not the jealous type. So...based on that, what would you call it? I think you're smitten."

"I was talking to myself?" I said, feeling myself turning a little red.

Ann laughed again and said, "Relax...all you said was she didn't seem like she belonged in Utah...I presume because of how she looks."

"Well, yeah. I mean, of all the places to see a woman that looks that..."

"Beautiful?" Ann said.

"Yeah...no! I mean yes," I sighed. I was flustered, and said, "I don't mean 'yes', like there aren't any beautiful women in Utah. Of course there are. I mean 'yes', like Maryam is beautiful in a mysterious, sensuous way. The only word I can put on it is...exotic. She just doesn't look like someone I'd picture being from Utah."

"She's not," Ann said matter of factly. "She's from LA."

"Los Angeles?" I said, a little stunned that Ann knew. I shouldn't have been. They'd spent well over an hour together, and Ann had a way of getting to know someone in just a couple of minutes.

"Well, Orange County. I doubt she's literally from Los Angeles. More likely she's from one of the suburbs...but she's certainly not from Utah."

"What in the world is she doing in Salt Lake City?"

"Massaging people," Ann giggled.

I gave her an exasperated groan and said, "I know that. But couldn't she have just done that in LA? Why move to Utah?"

"She'd just there for now. She's going back to California soon. She'd applying for Grad School in the summer. She said she wants to work for a city someday, in the planning department."

"She's a masseuse, but she wants to be a city planner?" I said with a laugh.

"She's only a masseuse to make money, Neil. It's a job. It's what she does...it's not who she is," Ann said, sort of admonishing me for laughing about Maryam's career path. And Ann's comment was something I'd said often, since it was a quote of my dad's. It made me wonder if I'd ever said it to her.

"I'm not making fun, Ann. It just seemed a little strange. How in the world did she become a masseuse to begin with?"

"She took a class. She told me that she got into it to make some extra money on the side, and she hooked up with the hotel chain after she graduated. She's worked at a couple of different locations, mostly in California. She's only been in Utah a couple of weeks, and they're sending her back near home at the end of the month so she can start applying to schools while she works."

"That still doesn't explain how she got into it. I mean, I assume she had some kind of training...but..."

"She thought it would be fun. She's 24, and she wanted to do something with no stress. She'd done a couple of other jobs after getting out of school. A couple of internships, and she worked at a lawyer's office for a while...which she found ridiculously stressful. So, she figured relieving other people's stress would keep her from having any. She said she likes people, and it allowed her to set her own schedule. She loved it until they moved away from home...well, that, and having to deal with the occasional pig that thinks it going to be more than a massage. She said working for the hotel chain made it easier...the clientele is a lot more understanding of what the service she provides really is."

"So...you're saying she doesn't get hit on."

"Ha...no...she still gets hit on, Neil. She's hot! Hot women get hit on all the time, no matter WHAT they do for a living...trust me on that," Ann said confidently, reminding me of just how a hot woman SHE was, which made me grin. "But her clients aren't walking into the room expecting to get sex from her. They just ask for her number instead."

"So...what happened with you then?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Ann replied, an impish grin appearing on her not so innocent face.

"Stop stalling, Ann. I want to know every detail, starting from where you left off."

"Left off? I haven't started telling you anything yet."

"The last thing I remember, and I remember it VERY well, is the two of you holding hands as you walked away from the table. Why don't you just pick it up from there?"

Ann sighed, and said, "You know...that was one of the most amazing things I've ever done in my life. We walked from the restaurant...all the way to her room like that. And it felt so natural. I think it was her way of making me feel at ease. She knew I was nervous...and I don't know why, really. It was just supposed to be a massage."

"Supposed to be?" I questioned, raising my right eyebrow.

"Neil, I think you and I both know we wouldn't be talking about this at all if it was just a massage," Ann replied with cute little wink. And she was right. That's why Ann had teased me with it in the first place.

"Go on," I smiled.

"Well, Maryam took me to the room they had set up for her. It's beautiful. Very open and bright when you walk in. It's just down from the pool, and the spa, and the workout area they have set up. But it's an actual suite that they've kind of converted into this massage therapy room, for the lack of a better way to put it. Anyway, there's a kitchen, and a bedroom off to the back. But she doesn't stay there...she didn't like the idea of people knocking on the door if she was staying there, so she made them give her another room to live in while she's there."

"Well, that makes sense."

"Yeah...but the place still had little touches that made me think she spent more time there than she let on. She kind of personalized it."

"Personalized it? What do you mean?"

"You know, the touch of a woman. Little knick-knacks, and things from her background. Things to make her feel more at home than she probably really feels in Utah."

"Well...that makes sense too. So, you're in the suite..."

"Ha...yes baby, we're in the suite. And she leads me into the room and tells me to make myself comfortable why she gets things ready. There's one of those standard issue massage tables right in the middle of what would be the living room area, and I'm looking at it as I'm sitting there on this big, overstuffed couch, trying like hell to get the butterflies out of my stomach."

"Butterflies? Were you really that nervous about it? It was just a massage."

"Yeah. It was. But there was something about Maryam that made me have butterflies."

"Did she scare you?"

Ann smiled as she looked at the floor, and let out a little giggle. Shaking her head, she said, "No...she didn't scare me."

"Well what was it then?"

She looked at me sheepishly. "I'm not sure how to...say it." I looked back and Ann, and she said, "She didn't scare, Neil. She turned me on."

My head practically snapped off my neck when I turned to look at Ann. She was smiling nervously, biting her lower lip as she looked for my reaction. And as my eyes caught hers, I couldn't help but smile softly.

"She did...did she?"

"Uh huh," Ann said as she slowly nodded her head. "Does that...bother you?"

"Nooooo...but it does intrigue me. What exactly are we talking about here?"

"I don't know really. It's not like I looked at her and thought anything sexual. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to her. But I think looking back on it...it was more emotional than physical."

"So...she turned you on. But she turned you on emotionally? Is that what I'm hearing?"

"Neal...I really don't know. I've never been attracted to women before. This is all kind of new to me, so I'm still sorting it out."

"What's new to you?" I asked, mentally scratching my head as I tried to decipher what Ann was talking about and put it all together in my brain.

"The feeling I had. Like I said, Maryam kind of turned me on. I felt some kind of connection with her...it was weird."

"Weird?"

"Well...maybe not weird. It was different. Like I said, I'm still sorting it out. All I know is, we were walking to the room and she held my hand the whole way there...and somewhere during that walk, I felt her hand in mine, and something inside me made me start to feel different about her. It felt kind of...I don't know...I guess 'sexual' is the only word to describe it. I had that pit form in my stomach, and I got nervous...excitedly nervous, like something was about to happen."

"Happen? Like what?"

"I had no idea at the time. I just had that feeling inside. I was sitting on the couch waiting for Maryam, and I was trying to talk myself about how I was just excited about the massage. But the only other times I've ever felt the way I was feeling before was when I was with guys, so I was a little confused. Anyway...I was sitting there, and finally Maryam came out from the back, and she had pulled her hair back into a long ponytail. She looked amazing, but she stood in front of me with this odd look on her face."

"Odd...what do you mean odd?"

"Well, she was smiling, but it was like she was amused. She kind of tilted her head a little, and she got down on her knees in front of me and lifted my foot."

"What?"

"Well...she told me to get comfortable, but I'd failed to realize what that meant. I never noticed there was a bathrobe to my right over the arm of the couch. Maryam had wanted me to get undressed. So, she kind of took matters into her own hands."

"She...undressed you?"

Ann nodded...still biting at her lower lip. "Yeah. She took off my shoes, and then she had me stand up and she turned me around, standing behind me. She slowly took off my dress and hung it up on a hanger and put it in the closet. When she came back, I was still standing there with my back to her, frozen in place. She said something like 'Do I have to do everything for you, Ann?', and she turned me around. She got this huge smile on her face when she saw my strip of pubic hair, and she looked at me and told me she really liked it."

Checking the road signs as I drove along listening to Ann, I noticed we were nearing our exit. I made a note to keep checking more often so I didn't miss it, but my ears were perked now that Ann had told me that she was naked...and Maryam was the one that got her that way. In fact, other parts of my body were perked as well, and I caught Ann staring at the big bulge in my shorts. She grinned, but she didn't dwell on it. Instead, she continued her story.

"Maryam took my hand, and led me over to the table. But I froze there too. I just stared at it, and I got kind of nervous. She felt my...well, my uneasiness, and she asked me what was wrong. I told her that the table looked cold, and impersonal. I told her it made me feel...sterile."

"Sterile?" I asked.

"Well, not in the traditional sense. More like I was in a doctor's office...that kind of sterile. It made me feel uncomfortable."

"What did Maryam say?" "She laughed. But she also agreed with me. She said as much as she tries to make it comfortable for people, there are those few that see if for what it is; just a cold, white, fake leather massage table. And that makes them tense up a little more."

"So what does she do about that?" I asked.

Ann laughed and said, "Funny you should ask. I asked her the same thing, and she said I was the only one that ever actually said anything. But then again, she said she'd never asked any of her other clients what was wrong before. She already knew what was wrong from their body language...and she just methodically got them up on the table and went about doing her job."

"So...why did she ask you then?"

"She said she felt something different from me, and for the first time, she was concerned about just making a client get up on the table. In fact, she said she felt like I wasn't a client at all...and that's what made her ask what was wrong."

We passed another road sign along the side of the highway, and I knew we were getting closer to the exit we needed to take. Checking my mirrors, I made sure there wasn't anyone close behind me so I could concentrate on Ann.

Nodding towards the clothes on the floor, I said, "You need to get dressed babe. We're going to be stopping soon.'

"Oh...are we almost where we're going?" she said as she reached down for her shorts.

"No...but where we're going is a little out of the way. We're going to need to stop for dinner soon, and I don't want to waste a lot of time waiting for you to get dressed."

Ann smiled, and put her feet through the openings of her shorts and then lifted her body, leaning her back against the seat as she arched it high. I smiled as I admired her feminine form as she struggled to get the tiny black shorts over her hips.

Ann groaned as she yanked at them, saying, "Sooooo...the next I know, Maryam is leading me away from the table by my hand, and she's taking me toward the bedroom. And in what seemed like seconds, I was lying face down on these beautiful gold colored silken sheets, and she's kneeling beside me on the mattress."

"You're kidding!"

"No...I'm not! She turned down the bed, and you know...just watching her do that made me relax. It didn't seem odd to me at all. In fact, it made the whole prospect of getting a massage seem more natural to me. So, I put my arms underneath a pillow, and I turned my head to the side...and I closed my eyes and let Maryam do her magic."

"And was it magic?"

"I would say that it was...yeah. I mean...I've had massages before, but never from someone that was trained to do it. They were always just basic, run of the mill massages from guys trying to get laid. But Maryam's fingers WERE magical. I never felt more relaxed than when she was working on my back, her hands working out kinks I didn't even know I had."

I looked over at Ann as she laced up the front of her shorts; her bare breasts bouncing around from the vibrations of the road, and her own movements. I was amazed at how relaxed and natural she looked at THAT moment. A hint of a smile appeared, knowing I was looking at her.

As she reached down for the dress shirt and slipped it over her shoulders, Ann looked at me and said, "If you want, I can leave this unbuttoned until we get to wherever we're going for dinner so you can keep staring at my breasts."

I shook my head back and forth quickly and turned back toward the road, just noticing that I was about to totally miss my exit. Jerking the car to the right and hitting the brakes to slow down on the exit ramp, I laughed. "I think you better put them away before I drive us off the road."

Giggling, Ann said, "Do you think you'll be okay if I tell you the rest of the story...or should I wait until we stop to eat? I don't want you to get distracted."

"My God Ann...you've already dragged it out for what seems like forever. NOT telling me is becoming the distracting part!" "Okay, okay...I'm sorry. I just like seeing you get excited...that's all."

"So you've been dragging it out deliberately?"

"Well, not really. But it's a nice side effect. You know me though baby...I just have trouble getting things out sometimes. My thoughts kind of scatter when I talk about sex."

"Well concentrate, dammit! I want to know what happened."

"What happened was...Maryam massaged my ass, and I felt my body tingle in ways I didn't know was possible. But she was very businesslike. She moved her hands down my legs to my thighs, and even though they were parted a little bit, she focused on what she was being paid to do...and she was magnificent at it. She worked on my calves, and then she moved to my feet. Oh my God, Neil...that felt heavenly. I got wet just from her massaging my feet!"

"Ann...you were wet at dinner."

"Okay, that's true. But I was dripping by the time she did that. She either didn't know I was turned on, or she was used to that kind of reaction and she ignored it. She just kept working on me, moving back up my legs, doing my ass again, and then my back and shoulders. And I didn't want to say anything about how I was feeling, because I figured I was overreacting to the physical attention she was giving me, and the fact that she was so hot."

"Well, when did Maryam find out...or let on that she knew you were turned on?"

"When she had me turn over," Ann said with a smile. Then she took a deep breath and said, "Everything was kind of normal for a massage, until she had me roll over onto my back. She had turned her head to get some more massage oil, and when she turned back to look at me, our eyes met. And that's when everything changed."

"Changed?"

"Uh huh. We both felt it. Well...I felt it. But I felt like Maryam felt it too. She started working on my upper body, putting the oil on my shoulders first, and then moving down to my tits...and as she massaged the oil onto my skin, our eyes stayed locked. There was a moment where she was cupping my tits as she worked them with her fingers, and her left hand slipped a little. The next thing I know, her fingers were resting on my right nipple, and she stares at me...and time seemed to stand still."

"And that's when she pinched it?"

"Uh huh. And that's when we started."

"Started...what?" I asked, fighting the urge to turn toward Ann.