Becoming Hers Pt. 01

A small dining table stood between the kitchen and living areas. I did not own a tablecloth but I was able to dig out some candles. I set the table with matching dishes, a feat for which I complimented myself. I told Alexa to put on some mellow jazz.

As usual, Sally was punctual. I buzzed her into my building and a minute later she was in my apartment. I was unsure whether I should kiss her hello but as I was deciding she leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She had on a white skirt and a tight green blouse, accentuating her curves in all the right ways. She looked great, and she seemed happy.

"You do this often? Make dinner for women you just met?" she teased.

A few snappy comebacks went quickly through my mind. But what I really wanted to do, and what I did, was to tell her the simple truth.

"Actually, no. Never. I just really wanted to see you and to do something special for you."

She took that in for a moment. I offered her a glass of white wine, which she took.

As I mentioned, the best feature of my otherwise sterile, small apartment was the view. I lived on the 23^rd floor and I had two windows in my living room with a great view of the Hudson River and New Jersey on the other side. I figured three quarters of the outrageous amount I paid for rent was due to that view. Sally was immediately drawn to the window, her wine in her hand.

"This is a beautiful view," she said as she looked out at the sun just beginning to set over the river. I resisted the urge to say that it was her, framed against the yellowing gauzy light streaming into the window, that was the beautiful view.

We sat on the sofa, which faced the window, and I lowered the blinds slightly to keep the sun out of our eyes. We sipped our wine and watched the sun set, chit chatting about this and that. She was upset with her roommate who left dirty dishes in the sink. An item in the news this morning about the collapse of an enormous glacier from the ice cap caught my attention. We talked about living in the City with both its great pleasures and its frustrations. I welcomed the opportunity to not talk about anything serious, but just to be.

As the sun's orb descended out of sight we sat down to eat. I lit the candles, pulled out her seat like a gentleman, and brought the artichokes as our first course. She looked uncomfortable.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"I've never eaten an artichoke," she said.

I knew that this was a critical moment. I had made her feel insecure and vulnerable and worked quickly in a matter-of-fact manner to make her more comfortable.

"Nothing to it. You just take each leaf, dip the base in the butter sauce, and use your teeth to scrape the meat off the leaf. I showed her.

"Mmm. It's good," she said.

When we got to the heart I showed her how to remove the choke and eat what was left.

I really wasn't thinking about this when I decided to serve the artichokes, but I found watching her eat it to be surprisingly arousing. Her sliding the leaves into her mouth and lightly scraping them with her teeth was sensuous, a sensuousness that was enhanced by the slight oily sheen from the butter on her fingers and lips. She was totally into the artichoke and I was totally into her.

We talked for the rest of the meal, this time about weightier things. I told her about my family and some of the frustrations of living within a kind of culture of emotional repression. I shared my lingering doubts about whether I really wanted to work in financial services. She told me mainly about her complex relationship with her mother.

"My mother is a remarkable woman. Her parents emigrated from Ireland to Brooklyn and were dirt poor. She was one of eight children and my grandfather, who I never knew, was rarely around and when he was around he was abusive. Like her brothers and sisters, after the eighth grade she went to work to support the family. She started doing sweatshop work but then, around the time she was eighteen, began to work as a maid.

"She met my father then. He was a sailor and was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. My mother was eighteen when she married. It was a small wedding in a church. Neither they nor their families had any money and the neighbors chipped in for a small celebratory meal after the ceremony.

"My parents moved in together and lived hand to mouth. Both worked long hours. Within the year my mother was pregnant with her first child. Six weeks after giving birth she went back to work, dropping off the baby with her mother and other siblings to watch. It was a really hard life.

"Over the years, my father did okay. He left the navy and worked for a manufacturer for a bit and then became a firefighter. He had a good union job and my parents moved out to Far Rockaway. My mother was having babies and soon stopped working. She stayed home to raise us.

"My mother poured herself into us. It was exhausting work. We were rambunctious and we were getting by on just my dad's paycheck. At least he isn't a drinker or gambler. She really ran the house, from the kids to the finances. She is a very strong and strong-willed person.

"She loves us all fiercely. I wonder sometimes if it isn't simply that she just loves, generally, fiercely. Underneath, there is something that seems to be churning in her. Maybe it's passion, or frustration. When I feel sorry about myself I sometimes think about her and wonder how she deals with a life of limitations and frustrated ambitions. What even are her ambitions?

"I am pretty sure that my father was her first, although she would rather die than talk about anything like that with me. She has now been with him about thirty years and I think that she sometimes wonder what it would be like to be with another man. She still looks good and takes care of herself and sometimes I think I catch her looking at a guy here or there, like the delivery man or men at the beach. Does she ever wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? For all I know, maybe she has taken lovers. But I doubt it.

"She loves me. I know that. And I love her. We talk every day. She wants to know what I'm doing, how I'm doing, and most importantly, who I'm seeing. She is constantly in my business, and it is sometimes suffocating. Here I am trying to make an independent life for myself -- precisely because my parents didn't want to invest in my education or keep supporting me -- and she won't let me go. Or maybe it is me who doesn't want to let go.

"I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to hear all of this."

"No. I'm glad you told me and that you feel comfortable telling me. Did you speak to her today?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell her about me?"

"Yes."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I met a really nice guy who wanted to cook dinner for me."

"And what did she say?"

Sally laughed.

"She said first that he must not be Irish and, second, that guys like that were rare and that I shouldn't blow it."

"Don't worry."

We sat for a moment in silence before she helped me clear the table. I brought out mangoes for dessert, which were fun and messy to eat. We turned our conversation to lighter topics.

It was dark out but the view, now of the lit-up New Jersey skyline, remained beautiful. I had made a pot of decaf coffee and we took our cups and sat on the sofa looking out of the window, the jazz still playing in the background.

"You like Springsteen?"

"Sure."

"Alexa, play Springsteen," I said and "Born in the U.S.A." began to play. She was startled. I laughed.

"Pretty nifty, isn't it? It's an Amazon Echo that I picked up on sale."

We sat quietly on the sofa. I put my right arm around her and she leaned into me, her head on my shoulder. It felt so right, so comfortable. I caressed the top of her arm and softly kissed the top of her head.

The next few minutes are a blur. I don't know whether I took the initiative or she did, but suddenly our lips were locked in an incredibly intense kiss. Her lips were moist and soft and she moaned as we kissed. Our tongues danced and explored and I could no longer control my hands from moving all over her. I wanted to make her mine.

Between kisses I peeled off her blouse. She wore a plain white bra which I quickly unclasped. Her moans got louder as I began kissing her neck and then, slowly, moving down. My fingertips were running softly over her breasts and hard nipples. She would shudder each time I traced my finger around one of her pink nipples. I couldn't wait to pop one in my mouth and suck on it.

But I did wait, at least for a few minutes. Instead, I teased her with my tongue. I ran my tongue down one of her breasts, right over it, just skirting the nipple. I gently kissed the underside of the breast and then put my tongue over her nipple, just enough to wet it. Then I blew on it before moving to the other breast.

While I was teasing her breasts my hands were busy as well. I ran one hand up her skirt and began to run a finger up and down her slit, over her panties. Every time I got to her clit she would jolt, as if an electric current hit her, and then softly moan again as I moved my finger downwards, tracing the outline of her hole. I could feel the wetness soaking through.

She was on fire, going mad from my fingers and tongue. She unbuttoned my shirt and took it off, my finger never leaving her pussy. I had stopped playing lacrosse some years before but I still maintained a solid build, with a muscular chest, good definition, and a medium amount of dark hair. The six-pack that I had in college was no longer visible, but my belly was flat and strong. I had powerful arms.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and now, pressing our chests together, kissed me deeply. I had one arm around her and with the other I moved her panties to the side and moved my finger around her opening.

"Oh my God," she said as my finger entered her.

We spent a while like that, kissing as I fingered her. But I couldn't take it anymore. I picked her up and carried her to my bedroom and laid her down on my bed. She looked at me, hungry. I slid down her skirt, which is when I noticed that she was wearing plain, white cotton panties. I did not dwell on that long as I slid those down too. She had a full, but trimmed, bush of soft red hair.

I unbuckled my pants and slid them off, along with my underwear. I was standing, my cock was hard, and throbbing. Her legs were spread open, her pussy wet, swollen, waiting. She looked so innocent and so desirous, but also scared. I moved from between her legs to my nightstand and quickly found and put on a condom. Now I saw the fear subside.

"Teach me," she said.

I am not sure that I was the right guy for that job, with my own limited experiences. But just hearing her say that, seeing how much she wanted me, broke something inside me. I was consumed with lust. I was no longer Steven Winthrop, scion of a Puritan family, Harvard graduate, B-school student on my way to being a master of the universe. I was an animal who couldn't think past plunging my cock deep into Sally and making her mine.

That's what I did. I entered her as she lay on her back and began to thrust. I first took her legs and put them straight up, perpendicular to her torso and against my chest. As I pumped into her I occasionally sucked one of her toes. She was in ecstasy.

"Rub your clit," I told her. I don't know where language and confidence like that came from. It was like I had turned into a different person.

As I fucked her hard she rubbed her clit, and kept doing so as shifted her so that I was looking down on her, my arms pinning her legs open. Neither one of us seemed to be in control of our own bodies; it was as if our bodies together were acting as one of its own accord. She was trying to gyrate her hips but couldn't find leverage, so I flipped us over, with her on top.

Now I was in a sitting position with my back against the bedboard and her on top. Her hands were pressed on the wall above my head, her tits pressed against my mouth as she ground down furiously. When I could I thrust up into her trying to meet her quickening rhythm, my hands rubbing her ass. It did not take along.

"I'm coming," she said.

I had barely been in control this whole time but now I couldn't hold it any more. As she let out a short, sharp yelp I exploded. I was spasming and spurting so much that when I calmed down a little I grew a little concerned about the condom. As she began to relax I reached down and holding the base of the condom withdrew from her. Everything seemed to be in order.

She reached for a tissue on my nightstand and placed it around the condom, removing it from my softening cock. She put it to the side and rested her head on my chest, her hand stroking my moist dick.

"That's some tool you have," she said. She giggled. It was the first time she had seen or touched it.

I wasn't quite sure how to reply. But in the state I was in, I wouldn't have been sure how to reply if I was asked my name.

"It's all for you," I mumbled as we both dozed off, with her in my arms.

To be continued....