Lamb

"So let me get this straight -- you fucked a mute stranger in a hotel utility closet?"

For a brief moment, Sharon stopped playing with her cornrow braid and widened her beautiful brown eyes at me in surprise. She had killer eyes.

"You make it sound so vulgar," I said, feigning affront.

In all honesty, I could scarcely believe it myself. Ordinarily, I would have felt a smug at this unusual carnal interlude, though there was little reason for smugness. I didn't initiate it. It wasn't as though the woman submitted giddily to my irresistible masculine wiles. I mutely went along with it, like a lamb to slaughter, though c.

It was my first bit of action in a long, confidence-eroding desert of chasteness. You see, the wife had left me to follow a Cirque du Soleil acrobat to Vegas. To this day, I didn't know whether the acrobat was male or female. I imagined her lover to be male, but I didn't know for sure. I tried to convince myself that it didn't matter, that an affair was an affair, but it did matter. Leaving me for another guy was one thing. It didn't make me happy, but there was plenty of precedent. Leaving me for an acrobatic uterus was another thing entirely, a devastating body blow to my fragile male ego. Biological imperatives notwithstanding, I would have been accused of turning a perfectly hetero woman into a lesbian. As if that weren't bad enough, flexible females featured in my own hyperextended fantasies. That my wife would appropriate my fantasies and realize them more successfully than I was a betrayal too profound to countenance.

"She wasn't mute," I said finally. "She just chose not to talk." It sounded strange even to me, despite the fact that I'd been there.

Sharon was an old friend. She had nursed me through the stages of grief after the wife had left -- denial, confused indignation, anger, rage, homicidal fury. She'd been a shoulder to cry on, always ready with the "there-theres", the "it'll-be-alrights" and the "pull-yourself-together-for-fuck-sakes."

"Not so much as an introduction?" she asked, squinting at me, looking for the joke.

I shook my head.

Sharon was my best female friend. I'd heard of the concept of friends with benefits but hadn't broached the subject with Sharon. I didn't want to risk it. I sometimes fantasized about enjoying benefits with Sharon, and suspected that she knew I did. Her suspicions didn't stop her from flirting with me from time to time, for which I was grateful. It gave me the impression that I wasn't completely harmless in her eyes.

"No thank you? No follow-up?"

I shrugged my shoulders. It would sound goofy if I told her that words had been unnecessary.

Several weeks ago, Sharon had convinced me to go to my company's Winter Wonderland Party. It was the company's attempt to have a Christmas party without offending the minority non-Christians. It also enabled them to take advantage of the lower cost of holding a party in February, which I suspected was the real reason. In doing so, the party itself lost any meaning -- the yuletide spirit that I might have mustered for my colleagues in December didn't extend to making small talk with them over expired eggnog while suffering seasonal affective disorder in the cold, nasty days of the shortest month of the year.

Sharon though, would have none of it. "You've got to circulate. Let people know you're back in the game."

"Spinster aunts beware," I said.

Sharon punched my shoulder. I fought not to let on how much it stung. I'm tough that way.

"But they're serving halal chicken," I said, pulling a face.

"You don't even know what halal chicken is," countered Sharon.

She was right. I didn't have a clue. "Do you?"

"I think they whisper sweet nothings at it while the slit its throat to bleed it."

"Ugh. I prefer my chickens atheist."

"There are no atheist chickens in the abattoir. Anyway, you need to let it be known that you're back in the hunt. I'm not saying that you should be putting the moves on your coworkers, but they might have friends or friends of friends who have a thing for slightly overweight, balding, father-of-two white guys..."

"You paint a rosy picture."

"...who are nonetheless cute, funny, available, and not gay."

"Makes you wonder why no one's beating a path to my door." I snapped my fingers. "Perhaps you can be my date."

"A winter wonderland party? Give your head a shake."

So I donned the suit that I used for weddings, funerals, job interviews and winter wonderland parties. The kids didn't need me anymore and were okay alone. My son, a 14 year old internet warlord of some dubious repute, grunted distractedly as I left. My daughter, two years his senior, had plans to meet her black-lipsticked coven.

Having successfully raised them to this level of maturity, I was free.

At the reception hall, I collected my two drink tickets. One for me and one for the date I didn't have but lied about. The company, fearful of litigation, wanted to make sure no one had too much fun. I chatted with a few people I knew, wished my staff a happy winter wonderland until their discomfort suggested to me that I should leave, and was given another drink ticket from a tea-totaller who must have sympathized with my social discomfort.

At length, people started drifting into the dining room. They seated us at round tables with a dozen place settings. The selection of your fellow diners was a bit of a crap shoot. Employees typically finagled things so that they weren't sitting with management. I couldn't blame them. I was a manager and my table was full of folks I dealt with every day and was perfectly happy to avoid during non-working hours.

The conversation drifted from the Toronto Maple Leafs, who would miss the playoffs again, to golf, which the Leafs and some of the guys at the table would be enjoying in a couple of months.

I feigned interest in the golf stories being exchanged.

"Do you golf?" asked my neighbor.

"No, I whack-fuck."

My neighbor looked at me, so I felt compelled to explain. "I whack the ball, and then I use an obscene term to express my displeasure as it sails into the tall grass to be found weeks later and then sold with my other balls on the side of the road."

"Ah."

Having effectively shut the door on conversational bonhomie, I straightened my cutlery. The hall filled with the rumble of conversation and I cursed Sharon for having convinced me to attend.

The lithe form of a woman eased into an empty seat opposite me. She was little taller than five feet, wore a form-fitting, strapless black dress that revealed a trim figure to great advantage. Dark hair cascaded around her shoulders, framing an exotic face that spoke of a more equatorial heritage that my own pasty-white northern hue. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes held mine for what I thought to be a moment too long. Full red lips parted slightly in a smile. I'd never seen her before.

I sighed to myself in the same way I do when I see expensive European sports cars and boats and big houses and all the other things I covet but would never have.

I caught her eye again and nodded at her in the way of men struck mute by unattainable beauty. My brain scrambled for something disarmingly endearing to say, a clever turn of phrase that would set me above other potential suitors. Nothing came to me. I didn't doubt that I would wake up in the middle of the night with a killer line on my tongue.

She nodded back. Her smile widened.

I felt like a giddy adolescent. A smile for me! From a beautiful woman no less!

Perhaps it wasn't genuine, I thought to myself. Perhaps it was an aloof smile that I hadn't correctly interpreted -- a smile that a benevolent goddess might bestow upon a cowering shepherd.

The woman's neighbor exchanged a few words with her, though I could make out none of it from across the table. An unreasoning pang of jealousy flared in me.

The man nodded and tried to get the attention of the table. "Everyone. I'd like you to meet..."

Just as the introduction was about to be made, the tapping of cutlery against wine glasses at other tables announced the CEO's obligatory address to the assembled troops.

The CEO stood and grinned at the assembled throng, amazed and perhaps a little chagrined at how many people were willing to celebrate winter wonderland. The year went well, he said. The company faced challenges and overcame them. Thank you all for your hard work. But you're not here to listen to me -- ha, ha -- let's eat.

An efficient army of wait staff soon served soup. I used the distraction to sneak a peek at the woman opposite me, and noted with alarm that she was unselfconsciously studying me, but without the pretense of stealth that I'd somehow failed to exercise. She popped a cherry tomato into her mouth and closed her eyes as she chewed. I'd seen a lot of people consume a lot of produce, but never had the sight caused my heart to skip a beat as it did then. I quickly looked away and cursed myself for doing so. Typical of me to abort what might have been a meaningful gaze of the kind shared by actors, usually from across a crowded room, in a Hollywood movie.

When I looked up again, resolving to be bold and signal my interest with an intense and suggestive gaze, she was engaged in conversation with the man who'd failed to introduce her. It was suddenly important for me to know her name. Curse the man for not yelling it over the CEO's inane blather.

The main course arrived. My halal chicken looked like every other chicken I'd eaten. Given that it had squawked into the sunset of its life on the wings of ritual, simply stuffing it into my mouth seemed woefully inadequate. This was, after all, a blessed chicken -- perhaps the first such fowl I'd eaten. "Sorry to eat you, little buddy," I said to it. It was the best I could do.

Over the course of the dinner, the nameless woman and I fenced gazes -- the thrust of a look, the shy retreat, the full-on engagement. There was, I had to admit, nothing aloof about her. She seemed as unaccountably curious about me as I certainly was about her.

I confess that I became agitated by her attention at this point; something was going on with this woman. Something I didn't understand. Did I dare hope? I asked myself. The woman appraised me over her barely-touched vegetarian lasagna while she twirled her dark locks between her fingers. I smiled back and this time it was she who looked away.

Finding my wits, I checked her finger for a ring but found none, nor was there any evidence that anyone else had accompanied her here.

Who on earth was she?

Before desserts were served, I excused myself from the table and hurried to the bar to convert a coveted drink ticket into a scotch. I needed to calm my nerves and take stock of the situation. Come up with a plan of action. Marshall my forces. Get my ducks in a row.

Drink in hand, taking deep breaths, I turned and came face to face with her.

The smooth lines that I'd rehearsed fled my mind. Instead, I stammered, "Oh! Hello. I'm..."

She gave me no chance to finish. A slender forefinger pressed against my lips, commanding me to silence. I gratefully complied. Her eyes searched mine for several long moments, as though evaluating me, and I felt curiously exposed under the scrutiny. I suppose that she found what she was looking for, for her hand slipped into mine and she was soon leading me out of the banquet hall.

"Um," I ventured, but she shook her head.

Okay, I thought, no words.

I allowed her to lead me down a hallway. The sounds of the party diminished and then vanished entirely, leaving only the soft whisper of our footsteps on the carpet.

Perhaps she wanted to speak with me in private, I thought. Perhaps she didn't want to be seen speaking with me. Perhaps....

She stopped and then stepped in front of me, raising her hands to cradle my face. By now I knew better than to talk. I couldn't have anyway. I was too busy trying to read her expression and to divine her intentions.

She then pulled my face to hers and pressed her lips to mine.

Nothing in my experience had prepared me for this. I was paralyzed. A beautiful stranger was kissing me.

Why? I asked myself.

What was wrong with her?

The part of me that wasn't asking myself stupid questions was gibbering in alarm, screaming that if I didn't reciprocate, this particular fantasy might evaporate or think me singularly witless.

I put my arms around her and pulled her close. Thank God for muscle memory. It seemed like the thing to do, and I was right. She molded herself to me and I to her, in silence, in the middle of the empty hall.

The long months of monkish existence and the warmth of another human being tore away whatever restraint I might otherwise have had. I kissed her hungrily, fearful that she might reveal herself as being little more than a dream or fiction. My heart leapt as she responded with equal energy, pressing the length of her body firmly against mine.

When she disengaged, my head swam from more than the scotch I'd gulped down minutes before. I opened my mouth, ready to proclaim my undying devotion to this mysterious and beautiful woman, but she shook her head and narrowed her eyes.

Got it. Last warning. Be quiet.

She turned and opened an unmarked door. She flicked on the light to reveal a utility closet and ushered me inside.

The door clicked shut behind her and the unreality of the situation dawned on me. This had to be a joke. I was being set up. But by whom? My colleagues? I doubted it. I didn't think that I'd affected anyone enough to have earned this treatment. Sharon? I couldn't see it. I then looked around for hidden web cameras and, failing to find any, scrutinized her for any sign of duplicity.

If anything, the untrammeled passion of her embrace had evaporated, leaving uncertainty in its wake. Behind closed doors, albeit within a utility closet, this weird incident had become more serious. What I saw in her was someone as wounded and hungry as I was, someone who'd taken an unthinkable chance and now found herself alone with a complete stranger.

Finding my wits, I approached her and placed my hands tentatively on her hips. She looked up expectantly and bit her lower lip. Having gotten me to this point, she seemed to look to me to take the next step. Ordinarily, I would have reassured her with a few words, perhaps made a lame joke to break the tension. Instead, I trusted instinct, stroked her cheek and kissed her.

The way she returned the kiss, with a sigh of relief, reassured me that I'd done the right thing. Time passed with the fleeting impressions of the heat of her breath in my ear, her breasts against my chest, the pressure of her pelvis against my leg.

At some point I felt her fingers fumbling at my waist. Soon my pants lay pooled at my feet. She knelt before me and teased my cock out of its confines.

I watched in disbelief as this stranger tentatively licked the glans and then smiled up at me while my cock rested in the pink bed of her tongue. She then ran her tongue up the underside of my cock before enveloping me in her warmth of her mouth. I leaned against the shelves behind me and buried my fingers in her hair. She worked me in and out of her mouth unhurriedly, allowing me ample time to feel the passage of her tongue and teeth over my length, as though we had all the time in the world and ran no risk of being discovered.

She adjusted the angle of her head, grasped my ass, and slid me into her until her nose pressed against me. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the feeling of her tongue undulating beneath me and her teeth pressing against the base of my cock.

Just as my breathing quickened, she stopped and withdrew.

With a last caress of my balls and a grin, rose and placed her hands on my shoulders. She set a booted foot on one of the shelves and rose in front of me. She then grasped an overhead pipe that ran the width of the closet, bent at the waist, and effortlessly lifted her legs. She draped them over my shoulders and gathered me towards her.

Perhaps, I thought, this was the acrobat I'd longed for.

I slid my hands up the backs of her thighs and rolled her dress up over the curve of her ass to her waist. I supported her back with my hands and legs on my upper arms. She spread her legs to me, revealing no underwear, but a clean-shaven mound and the heady scent of perfume and woman.

I kissed the insides of her upper thighs as I worked my way closer to her. I licked silky smoothness of her outer labia and worked my way slowly in, drawing the tender flesh of her lips into my mouth. I could taste her now. She arched her back and widened her legs. I parted her lips with the tip of my tongue, tracing a lazy path from the base of her cunt to its crown, gradually teasing her clitoris out of its pink confines.

She moaned as I worked my tongue around the pink pearl of her clitoris. Her body, suspended between the pipe and my arms, rocked gently, her abdomen undulating.

I drew this little bud of flesh into my mouth and ran my tongue lightly over its surface. She whimpered and I felt her weight on my shoulders and arms increase as she removed one hand from the pipe to place it at the back of my head. She pulled me into her and I lapped her.

A muted squeal and tremor signaled her climax and she caught my head within the vice of her legs. I thrust my tongue as deeply into her as I could, exploring and tasting her as she shook in my arms.

She parted her legs and moaned as the tremors subsided. The head that had been thrown back now looked down at me as I gently teased her clitoris. She smiled and I read gratitude in her eyes. Gratitude and something else -- wickedness. The wickedness of someone who had accepted a challenge and now had a score to settle.

She brought her legs around my shoulders to the level of my waist and then removed the other hand from the overhead pipe to grasp me around the neck. I still held her legs as she lowered her hips. I felt the slick and yielding softness of her pussy poised over the tip of my cock.

She leaned into me and licked the wetness from my chin and from around my mouth, savoring it, and then sharing it with me, tongue twining with mine as her pussy lowered itself in slow and delicious increments onto my cock.

The whole time she observed me, watching for those tiny cues that spoke more loudly than words.

When she could lower herself no further, she clenched her muscles tightly around me. Part of me wanted nothing more than for her to ride me with a vengeance, but I shook my head, not wanting to end it just yet. She understood, releasing me and easing upwards.

I held her for several long moments, marveling at her understanding and all that was possible without words. No promises, no demands, just a fragile chain of gestures.

I lowered her slowly onto me, gasping at the tight warmth of her and gave myself over to sensations, my attention narrowing to little more than the hard length that she allowed to penetrate her. She rocked gently in my arms, polished me with the firm strokes of her cunt.

Over several minutes, her languid pace increased and before long my breathing quickened. At the moment when all else vanishes but the ecstasy of release, she squirmed out of my arms and dropped to her knees. She took me into her mouth, her tongue finishing what her pussy had started. I could hold it no longer and released myself into her. She held me there, tongue lapping at me, drinking me in until at long last the spasms passed.

I closed my eyes and held the sides of her head, wanting to commit the sensations to memory.

At length she rose to her feet.

I stood dumbfounded and spent as she pulled the dress down over her hips.

She looked at me with those mellow brown eyes, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me then.