A Little Yearning Ch. 11

"Will I see you again?"

"You know where to find me."

"This is not what I mean to say. I mean, do you want to see me again?" he said carefully.

She looked up at him for a moment and he could not read her eyes in the darkness. "You mean like a date or something?"

He nodded solemnly.

"Honestly, I don't know, Carlos. Let me think about it." She squeezed his hand briefly, but her brow was wrinkled and her lips pursed in an a sort of emotional calculus as she turned away and she was asking herself, really, how did she feel about him? With Hailey, it all seemed so straightforward. She was fascinated by her style, dazzled by her brash beauty, flattered by her attentions, thrilled by her touch.

But with Carlos, however, she still felt ambivalent. Maybe she was just not cut out for heterosexuality, she thought ruefully. His presence awed he, yes, and she felt drawn to him like a moth to the flame. But was this nothing more than a fatal attraction, as doomed as it was inevitable? She could feel the heat, but where was the light? There seemed still to be a gap between them that no spark could bridge, a veil that hung there, something left unsaid, unfinished.

She shrugged. "Really, I do like you. I'm on at five tomorrow afternoon. Come by and we'll talk, O.K.?" She turned away and bent to unlock the door to her car.

She felt his hand on her shoulder and he turned her around and wrapped his arms around her. His embrace was as unyielding as iron, as soft as mercury. Her feet came up off the ground as he pressed his lips to hers. Then there was no space at all between them, where she left off and he began. Anita felt her bones go all to water as he kissed her and she opened her mouth to him and pressed herself against the quickening bulge in his trousers and shuddered and then, just like that, her love came down and quenched her panties.