Blind Date

"Yes?"

"...approached her pussy, her hips lunged from the bed, meeting my fingers, and her 'please' turned from a whimper into a moan."

"How could you not give her the pounding she wanted?"

"By giving her the tongue-lashing she needed."

"Mm hmm. How did you know that was what she needed?"

"You remember how we were talking about sexual compatibility a few days ago? I don't think I ever really knew what it meant until last night. Normally it takes a lot of sex to know what a woman needs -- when she likes it soft and tender, or when she wants you to go fast and furious on her. But with Thea, I was in her head. I just knew. I knew that she wanted me, but that she was desperate to lose control -- to lose her mind. I sensed the way to do that was to deny her, tease her, and keep her guessing and anticipating. She needed to get out of her head."

"Getting her out of her head by giving her head. Ingenious. Did it work?"

"Check out these scratches on my back."

"Oh God, she scratched you that hard? I'm sor... so glad it wasn't worse. How did that happen?"

"I kissed her, on her... you know..."

"Say it!"

"On her pussy. I kissed her on her pussy. Normally I start slow and tender, but she was so wet, I went by instinct, and I sucked her clit inside my mouth, and sucked hard."

"Yeah?"

"And my God, she... erupted. There's no other word for it. Her whispering turned to screams, her hips bucked and thrashed, her body leapt off the bed, and she grabbed the back of my head. She pulled my head toward her pussy, and just started clawing my upper back and neck, wailing incoherently. I don't think she was trying to scratch me. I don't think she was thinking at all. She was just feeling and screaming and thrashing. She was an orgasm personified."

"Mmm."

"I sucked on her clit harder, and she erupted again, this time flopping back down onto the bed, whimpering while making these small fast circles with her hips. Then I reached up, took her nipples between my fingers, and pinched."

"Yes..."

"She screamed again. With the rhythm of her hips, she was trying to fuck my face, like she wanted to bring my entire head inside her. Chaise? Are you okay?"

"Huh?"

"Are you feeling okay? You look like you're about to fall over."

"I'm, uh, fine. Just adjusting my skirt. What did you do to her next?"

"I decided she was ready. I moved her beneath me, and put my mouth next to her ear." "Yeah?"

"I said to her, 'Now I'm going to fucking pound you.'"

"Oh God..."

"And she just squeaked."

"She squeaked?"

"Yeah. She said, 'Eep'. It reminded me of something..."

"Stay on track. So you pounded her?"

"No, I fucking pounded her."

"Tell me about it."

"Her throat made this sound I had never heard before, half-pant, half-howl. And half-moan."

"That's a half too far."

"She flailed her arms across my back again. When her fingernails began to plow furrows in my skin, I grabbed her wrists, and pinned them over her head."

"I bet she loved that."

"I think she did. With her arms and hips pinned, she could only move her legs, and she wrapped them tight around me. Her heels were somehow digging into my ass."

"Like I said -- Yoga."

"I was kissing her the whole time, and she had her mouth wide open as she moaned, until suddenly her hips thrashed up against me and her mouth snapped closed, almost biting my lips. I could feel her hold her breath. Her body tensed. Then she whispered in my ear, 'Oh God, you made me come.'"

"Mmm."

"'I whispered back, "Doesn't count if you're that quiet. I want to hear you scream.' She shook her head rapidly as I thrust into her again. She tried to twist her wrists out of my hands, but I pinned them hard against the mattress, and I imagined I was skewering her straight into the bed to keep her from moving. That's when she panted my name in my ear. 'Oh, Jeff, yes Jeff, yes, fuck me Jeff. Fucking pound me, Jeff.' Like that."

"And how were you holding up during all this?"

"Barely. Honestly, I can rarely last that long unless I've had an orgasm already that day, but I somehow found reserves of... control? Strength? I don't know. She brought it out in me. I so much wanted to make her lose control that I found discipline of my own."

"And, um.... did it work? Did you make her lose control?"

"She whispered with more urgency, 'pound me with your hard cock, Jeff. You can't imagine how much I want this.'"

"Didn't know you had that effect on women, did you?"

"Honestly, no, but she convinced me otherwise. I pounded her hard, with my lips on hers, which forced her to exhale her obscenities into my mouth. Finally, she tensed like a steel cable. I felt a sharp breath, and she unleashed a shriek of passion that must have echoed through every air vent in the hotel, all the way to the restaurants across the street."

"It was that loud?"

"Her cries sent me to the same place. The sensation of my climax inside her inflamed her again, resulting in another scream, even louder than the last."

"Everyone must have heard. Oh my God..."

"I collapsed on top of her, and released her arms. She stroked her fingers through my hair, and she whispered in my ear, 'You're mine. Just for tonight, maybe, but you're mine.'"

"And being a guy, you pulled on your pants and ran."

"What? No, it was sweet, and it was after the best sex I'd ever had. I had never brought forth such a reaction from a woman before. Nor had any woman inspired such a performance from me. You think I was going to leave? Hell, I brought three condoms, like you suggested."

"You used them all?"

"Plus one of the four she brought herself. She said she was afraid I wouldn't bring enough."

"I told you she was a slut."

"After the fourth time, she dressed in the bathroom, and told me she had to work today. She was complaining about it, saying I had pounded her so hard she wouldn't be able to sit down the next day. I suggested she take a sick day, but she said her boss would probably spank her if she missed a day."

"Some women would sacrifice dental coverage to get a spanking benefit. Depends on the boss."

"I guess. Oh, where are my manners? You've been standing this whole time. Please, Chaise, sit down."

"Ah, no thanks. I had an intense workout yesterday, and I think I worked my glutes too hard. It feels better to stand. I need to go get some work done anyway. Are you going to see her again?"

"I didn't see her at all, remember. But yeah, we made plans to meet again over the weekend. Thanks for listening. I've never done that before, describing a sexual encounter like a story."

"You weren't bad. I liked the... honesty of the story. You're the president and founder of the company, Jeff. You have this face behind your mask that we worker bees rarely glimpse, and I feel like I got a long look."

"By the way, Chaise, you haven't cashed that check I wrote you last week."

"That? I tore it up. Writing the ad just took me a few minutes of work, and it was fun."

"But..."

"It was the principle of the thing. I'd been feeling a little underappreciated from my spat with Dennis. It meant a lot to me -- that my skills were worth that much to you. But it would have been rude to cash the check."

"But you paid for dinner because I was paying for your time. That doesn't seem fair."

"You can buy me dinner this weekend. Friday?"

"I'm... uh, seeing Thea again on Friday. How about Saturday?"

"Saturday? But that's V --- that's fine. See you then."

"And take it easy on your exercise. You don't want to get hurt."

"I don't mind the pain. This was the best workout I ever had, and the pain reminds me of a wonderful experience."

"Chaise, you're a lot of fun to talk to, but you're kind of a freak."

"I know."

February 14

"So, Jeff, did you see Thea again last night?"

"Yes, but we discussed her enough the other day."

"Did you see her face this time?"

"No, she said that our first encounter was so wonderful in the dark, she wanted to do it again. But I'm serious, Chaise, let's talk about something else."

"How about the food at this restaurant? What's good here?"

"Everything. I asked the Chef to surprise us. We'll see what we're eating when they bring it out."

"I love surprises."

"I normally don't, but I've been feeling playful lately. But I didn't mean I wanted to talk about the food. Let's talk about you."

"Me? Nah, I'm boring."

"Your only fault seems to be false modesty."

"I have more faults than that."

"You looked guilty when you said that "

"I'm not as... honest... as I should be."

"No one seems to be very honest."

"My current boyfriend is."

"You're... seeing someone?"

"Yes. We just started dating, but I'm afraid I screwed it up. I haven't been honest about myself."

"Almost everyone seems to do that, presenting only their better qualities early on."

"This is more extreme than that, and I think it'll be a problem."

"Why?"

"I've really liked and admired this guy for a long time. He's brilliant, sweet, and gorgeous. I've had a stupid crush on him for two years now, but I didn't really know him. He can be really clueless sometimes, but the more I know him, the more I see that's just his own innate honesty. He wouldn't think of lying, so it doesn't occur to him that someone else might not tell the truth."

"That much honesty isn't necessarily a good thing."

"No shit. He's clueless about how clueless he can be, but it's kind of cute. You know, I'm pretty sure you could even describe how clueless he was, right in front of him, as if you were talking about someone else, and he wouldn't realize you were talking about him."

"Now he just sounds like an idiot."

"No, trust me, Jeff. He's really smart. As smart as you."

"I'll take your word for it. And you took advantage of his cluelessness by lying to him?"

"It was a mistake, but I saw a chance to be with him, and I took it. Now I feel ashamed and stupid myself."

"Why not tell him the truth?"

"I think it would destroy the relationship."

"If it does, then maybe it wasn't meant to be."

"Do you remember when we talked earlier this week? You described what it was like to be with Thea. That was really beautiful, and important to me -- to hear what it felt like. I want to share what it's like to be with... Ernesto."

"Ernesto?"

"It's not his real name. I saw him again last night after work."

"Where?"

"That's not important. Your story was full of details, and while it was true and beautiful, the truth of my experience with Ernesto is more emotional."

"I'm not sure I want to hear this."

"Please, Jeff? I need to tell this story to you."

"I guess I owe you. Alright, how did it feel when you were with him?"

"You mentioned something awhile ago, about wanting a conversation where the world disappeared. They were so fascinating to you that nothing else existed."

"Yes, and I think I've found her."

"I didn't know what you meant then. But I feel that way with Ernesto."

"Oh."

"I love it when he wraps his arms around me. He's so strong, and while every guy is bigger than me, he's bigger and stronger than most guys. With his arms around me I felt small, but also protected, like he would never allow anything bad to happen to me -- that he could snap his fingers and any problem would just vanish. I've never felt like that with a guy before. Maybe I never trusted them enough."

"You don't seem the type to need a guy to protect you."

"That isn't the point. I know half the guys in the building think I'm a bitch. I know how to stand up for myself."

"No argument."

"But there's a place for that, and the bedroom isn't it. At least for me. I once tried to encourage one of my boyfriends to be more forceful in bed. He tried it, and it was a little better, and afterward he asked, 'Was that how you liked it, honey, was that good?' Which killed the mood. "

"But 'Ernesto' isn't like that."

"No."

"You want to be wanted so much, that all he can think of is taking you."

"Yes, and I felt that way when he held me. I could feel how hard he was, you know... in his pants?"

"You can say the word, Chaise."

"Touché. I could feel his hard cock straining the fabric of his pants. I knew it was hard because of me. I knew he had been hard all day, thinking of us being together again. I imagined him at work, remembering me licking his sugar-coated cock while he cupped my breasts -- remembering himself standing on the side of the bed, taking me from behind as I howled blasphemies into a pillow clenched between my teeth. I imagined him trying to concentrate on his work, but unable to get the texture and heat of my pussy out of his head. I imagined him adjusting himself because he could never make his pants comfortable. Because of me."

"Because of you."

"And I can tell that's what he's been doing all day, fantasizing about me. I can feel it the way his arms seize me when I arrive. I hear it in his voice when he growls his lust in my ear. I ache for it in the steel of his cock. And I revel in it. My knees quiver when I feel his passion. I open up for him."

"I've heard women compare it to a flower opening to the sun."

"Not for me. I'm a book -- a treasured favorite -- having its spine caressed as it's opened by a loving owner. I want to be read and comprehended more and more over time. But at the same time, I want to mystify, thrill, haunt, inspire, arouse, excite, and transfigure, the way all great books can. I want him to turn my pages so I can reveal all my secrets, or at least all secrets but one, which I will save for the end."

"A plot twist?"

"Dramatic irony, where the reader sees it coming but the main character doesn't. But that wasn't the point. It's about how he makes me feel."

"All that from sex?"

"Sex? No, that's just how I feel when he holds me in his arms. You want to know about the sex?"

"You said you wanted to tell me."

"What can I say about the sex? I have a reputation as a slut, did you know that?"

"Um... I heard rumors, but I never take rumors seriously."

"I spread most of the rumors myself, but they aren't really true. I do like sex -- the bodies slapping together, the flirting, the spurting. It feels good, so I do it sometimes. But it always created unwanted complications. I rolled my eyes at the girls who argued that sex was somehow better when there was true intimacy -- where there was a connection beyond the biological. I never really got it before."

"But now?"

"I feel like I've discovered gravity. I mean, yes, everyone knows an apple falls from a tree, but I feel like Newton must have felt when he finally understood why the apple fell. The whole world suddenly made sense. My lover touches me, and I feel like a woman for whom men will kill. I'm Helen of Troy in his arms. He kisses me, and I'm a swooning high school girl at a concert for the cutest boy-band in the world. He undresses me, and I feel naked. I've been naked many times, but I never felt naked. I never felt sexy. When I'm naked with him, I feel vulnerable, but safe, like I can be hurt but I trust him completely to bring joy instead. When he caresses me, my skin is electric silk. When he tastes my breasts I become a puddle of lust. He grasps my ass in his hands, and I know sexual surrender. He touches my pussy, and my pussy feels incomplete. It needs to be filled. I will accept his fingers, or his tongue (and he uses them both so well), but what I really want his cock. I want his thick, hot, sliding, ramming cock. I want to feel the walls of my pussy part for him. I want friction. I want the pulse, pulse, pulse of his hips and heart as he thrusts that magnificent cock of his so deep inside me that it becomes my entire world."

"Chaise..."

"And it does, Jeff. It does become my entire world. He teases me until I want to scream -- until I'm so wet and eroticized that his cock consumes my thoughts, and just when I'm sure my pussy will ignite, he moves me whereever he will have me, He takes me. He's on top of me. Or he's pinning me against the wall. Or he bends me across a chair. I'm fucked until I scream like the slut I am. I told you I wasn't really a slut, and I wasn't. Not like I am now, with him -- not the kind who sleeps with lots of men, but the kind who, with the right man, becomes sex incarnate -- lusting and fucking and coming and coming and coming again and Oh God I'm coming again yes yes yes Yes! Until my body betrays me and I no longer have the energy to move, and I collapse in the powerful warmth of his arms. He makes shushing sounds with his lips, and his whispers tell me how perfect I am. And I am perfect. All my doubts -- all my stupid neuroses -- they vanish in a post-coital cuddle. For that brief moment, I am perfection."

"..."

"Jeff?"

"I don't know what to say. I only hope I made Thea feel one tenth as amazing as that."

"Don't sell yourself short, Jeff."

"And it's all based on a lie? What's the big secret you're hiding from him?"

"I can hardly tell you without also telling him, could I? That wouldn't be... fair."

"Okay, but what type of secret? Medical?"

"More personal. I'm not the person he thinks I am. Let's leave it at that."

"And you can't tell him the truth."

"He'll hate me. I can't bear that."

"He'll find out eventually."

"I know."

"The smart move is to tell him the truth now. If it'll be bad when he finds out, it'll be worse the more you procrastinate."

"I don't want to do the smart thing."

"You're a smart woman."

"I'm always the smart woman -- the sensible woman. My parents named me after a piece of furniture. I moved to the Bay Area to be an author, like Hammett, or Steinbeck. Tech writing was just to pay the bills while I worked on my novel, but I never wrote my novel. I contribute fully to our 401k instead of splurging on a closet-full of Italian shoes. That raise you gave me last week? I've already budgeted for upgrading my car from a sensible Corolla to a sensible Camry. I'm sick of being sensible, and this is my chance. Every woman is entitled to one mad, self-destructive, glorious love affair that her friends all see as a clusterfuck. But she does it anyway, because it makes her head swoon, her heart pound, and her cunt explode. This is my glorious affair, dammit. Mine! I want to throw caution into the hurricane. I want to sow oats so wild Maurice Sendak has to write a book showing where to find them. Yes, this affair will wreck my life -- soon, but I'm doing it anyway. When I die, and I look into the face of my creator, he will ask what I did with my life, and I can say, 'I never wrote my novel, but for a few vibrant weeks I knew perfect sex with an amazing man. I knew he felt the same way about me, but in those weeks, I lived,' I will say. 'I loved. I fucked. I lived. That's what I did with my life.'"

"Chaise?"

"Yes?"

"Have you told him you feel this way?"

"I'm.... trying to. It's hard. It's easier to tell you about him. If I told him, he would wonder if I had an agenda, or he would feel weird if he didn't feel the same way. It's easier to tell you. You just believe me."

"It isn't my business, but I think I need to say this. You're an amazing person, and no lie will ever change that. If this 'Ernesto' can't see that, then he isn't worthy of you."

"Why do you look sad when you say that?"

"It doesn't matter. It's too late."

"We've been sharing most of our secrets with each other. Say it."

"I... broke up with Thea."

"What???"

"I sent her an email just before I picked you up for dinner. She may not have even read it yet."

"You broke up with her... via email???"

"That's the only way to contact her."

"ON VALENTINE'S DAY???

"It didn't seem right to prolong it."

"But... but... you bastard!"

"What?"

"You cruel, heartless bastard. She was falling in love with you! Don't you know that? Why, please tell me why?"