Cuddle, Kiss and Comfort

This is a follow-up to Lovely, Dark and Deep, published in the romance section on 1/25/2022. For a fuller appreciation of what follows, I'd recommend you read that one first.

Rhiana lives in the newer section of this neighborhood. The houses, ranchers and split-levels with lots of glass, were built after the Second World War. But the street pattern conforms to the older section where I grew up, winding and circuitous, the "anti-grid" as someone once called it.

Once inside, we kick off our boots on the two towels left just inside the door. Then Rhiana's mom comes out of the kitchen. "Well look what the wind blew in," she says. "If I'm not mistaken, Rhiana, you left here alone." She looks me up and down, curious but welcoming.

"Mom, this is Aaron Kravitz," Rhiana says. "He once lived around here."

"And we just met on a blind date," I chime in.

Mrs. Schuster grins. "And you obviously hit it off very well." She sticks out her hand. "I'm Roslyn Schuster. Make yourself at home. Here, I'll take your coat."

The woman's got a sense of humor, I think, handing her my ski jacket, while Rhiana gives her a brief rundown on how we met, leaving out the grieving part. "When Aaron began quoting Robert Frost, I just knew I had to bring him home."

"And when she began to quote back, I couldn't resist her invite," I say.

I follow Rhiana into the kitchen, which looks like something out of a nineteen-sixties issue of House Beautiful Magazine. Yellow and turquoise appliances. Brick pattern linoleum floor. Globe lamp attached to a brass rod hanging from the ceiling over a round Formica table. "I'm in the mood for a cup of hot chocolate," Rhiana says. "How about you?"

"Make that two." While she's at the stove, I train my eyes on her cute butt beneath her tight spandex slacks. Boys will be boys, even those still grieving over the death of a fiancé.

Roslyn Schuster comes into the kitchen, makes herself a cup of tea and then joins us at the table. She looks her age, late fifties to sixty, I'd guess, with short, gray-brown hair, a few freckles and a figure that could use some sweat equity to stave off the weight gain endemic to middle-age, female bodies. Per her interest, I tell her what street I grew up on, my current residence and what I do for a living (IT specialist for the state). I then learn that Rhiana teaches sixth grade at a local grade school. "The kids were so sensitive..." Roslyn begins to say, then stops and looks at Rhiana. "Does he know about Sam?" Rhiana nods and she continues. "The kids were so sensitive when Sam was killed. They made her the sweetest condolence card. Even some of their parents sent their condolences and offers to help in any way they could. The kids love her. She was voted teacher of the year. Twice."

"Mom and dad like to brag about me," Rhiana says. "I just love what I do."

I hadn't planned on bringing up my own brush with tragedy, but Roslyn's mention of it gets me to reveal what happened to Kathy. Roslyn places her hand over mine, tells me how sorry she is. "We're kindred spirits in grief," Rhiana says. "Not the happiest thing to have in common, but at least it's not the only thing."

I nod. "That's true. We're both crazy enough to hike in frigid weather."

"And we can quote Robert Frost," Rhiana says.

"Hey, I can do that," Roslyn says. "'Good fences make good neighbors.'"

Rhiana chuckles. "What about the rest?" She looks at me. "Aaron?"

"'Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun...'"

"That's as far as I can get," I admit.

"Still impressive," Roslyn says.

"For some reason, I remember some lines around the middle part," Rhiana says.

"'He is all pine and I am apple orchard

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him...'"

"Listen to you two," Roslyn says. "The culture couple." She takes a sip of tea. "Aaron, did Rhiana tell you that she hasn't been out with a guy since Sam's death?"

"No, and I guess we have that in common too, because I've been on a kind of social hiatus since Kathy was killed."

"I understand, seeing what my baby went through." She rubs Rhiana's arm. "Not easy."

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Roslyn says, "Well, I'll let you kids be. Meanwhile, I might brush up on my Robert Frost."

"Your mom seems very nice," I say, "welcoming me into her home, not knowing who the hell I am."

Rhiana nods and takes a sip. "Yeah, she's cool. Both she and my dad have given me the emotional support I needed. I'm still not ready to move out, and there's no pressure to. In fact, I think they like me being here. When my younger brother Rick moved out, it wasn't an easy adjustment for them from having kids in the house to being empty nesters. Now, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Are you still on social hiatus?"

"You know, it's been about a year since the accident, the so-called standard period of mourning. Of course, on a personal level, there is no standard period. We're all different. Before today, before a little over an hour ago, my hiatus was still on. I still mourn, and I suspect that I'll continue to mourn on some level for the rest of my life. I don't know if that's the case with you about Sam but--″

"Yes. Like you said, on some level the pain will never go away. I think about Sam all the time as I'm sure you do Kathy."

"I do, yes. The memories and our planned future together, a future that will never be because of a texting driver. The jarring suddenness of it. I still find it hard to process."

She nods and reaches for my hand. "The jarring suddenness of it. Oh, my, can I relate to that. I never got to say goodbye. Never got to make him one more meal. Never got to tell him I loved him one last time. So horribly unfair." She shakes her head and blinks, trying to stifle tears that begin to fall.

Then I get emotional, feeling her pain as well as mine. Misery loves company? No, it's that misery craves comfort. We reach out at the same time, then stand and hold each other. Tight. Moments pass saying nothing because nothing needs to be verbalized at this moment. We catch each other's tears, tears that fall on my flannel shirt and her scarlet sweater.

When we decouple, she reaches for a tissue and blows her nose. Then: "Aaron, if anybody saw us doing this without hearing what's been said, they'd think we're some couple in the middle of a breakup." She draws one of those sad-comic smiles that people do in an effort to bring comic relief.

I wipe my eyes, thinking of something to say or do that might ease the sadness and keep her smiling. "And here we just met. Well, Rhiana, that was some fast relationship. It's been real. So long." I throw her a wave and turn around as if I'm about to walk out.

It works. I get a laugh, genuine and unforced.

"But seriously, folks," I continue, "as to your question about my social hiatus, if you don't mind seeing a still grieving man, then I'd love to see where this might lead."

Still smiling, she reaches out and grips her small hands around my arms. "I'm right behind you, a still grieving woman who would love to see where this might go. Look, because we're grieving doesn't mean we don't deserve to be happy, or at least pursue what could make us happy again. You've brought cheer into my life already, just in the short space of time I've known you. And what could cheer me up even more, right now, is being alone with you, to cuddle, kiss and comfort. Can you put that on your agenda?"

"You got it. But where?"

She leads me into the den, a cozy, carpeted room with bookshelves lining the walls, a sofa, rocking chair and a stereo that looks like it had been purchased by her dad. Not to be sexist, but few women are into high-end stereo gear. Her dad bought it but it was actually Sam who advised him on what components to buy, she tells me. "Sam was heavily into this stuff," she says.

I had heard B&W speakers in various listening rooms, so I know this is good "stuff." In my stocking feet, I relax on the sofa while Rhiana pops a Rachmaninov piano concerto into the Denon CD player and then joins me. I'm lukewarm when it comes to classical music, but I like what I'm hearing. Lush and romantic, it sounds like the right kind of music for our present state

of mind.

To cuddle, kiss and comfort. We begin doing all of the above, not in a heavy,

passionate way, but slow and cautious, even tentative. It's akin to wading into the ocean, one step at a time, testing the water. But that's okay. We're still strangers who met in a strange kind of way. I'm grooving on her warmth and caring. Not to mention her long, sexy legs wrapped in those sexy tight spandex pants. "And to think, before meeting you, I wasn't ready for this," I say.

She reaches up and runs her fingers through my hair, grown long, like my beard. "Me neither. I had almost become a recluse. I'd go to work, teach, then come home and cry. It was tough facing those kids each day but somehow, I made it through. Once in a while, nagged by girlfriends, I'd go out and have a drink with them. Some of them even tried to set me up with guys they knew, or guys that knew other guys. I politely declined."

She has such nice skin, baby-soft, satin-smooth, I think, sliding my fingers across her face. "Then I came along."

She nods. "Yes you did, Aaron Kravitz. On a most unlikely day. I think this is a clear case of serendipity."

We get back into it, necking while this sublime music fills the room, music that just might entice me to give classical music more of a chance. At the very least, I'll always associate the name Rachmaninov with another name, Rhiana Schuster, and a certain frigid day in January. Frigid outside, that is. Inside, on this plushy sofa, things are heating up. No longer so tentative, Rhiana leans forward and kisses me while straddled on my lap. Her kisses warm and comfort me, and the intoxicating, lanolin-scented smell of her wool sweater and some kind of floral scent that I surmise is part her, part whatever she's wearing, add fuel to the fire. "You're perspiring," I say, with my hands tucked under her sweater, feeling the beads of sweat along her stomach.

She sits up and says, "Yeah, well, it's getting warm in here." She lifts the ends of her garment and fans it in front of her. "I'm tempted to take this off. But then my bra would come off too and that could lead to something we lack the privacy for and emotionally I'm not sure I'm ready for."

"I understand because emotionally we seem to be in the same place," I tell her. "Physically, well, that's a different story."

She chuckles and cops a feel between my legs. "Yes, I can tell. And you should know that I feel my panties getting wet."

"Which means, I think, that you're attracted to me."

"That is the case, yes. Very much so. I just need more time. Sorry, don't mean to be a tease."

Ordinarily, in a situation like this, I'd be frustrated. But this is no ordinary situation, Rhiana is no ordinary woman and there's no way I'm going to push the envelope. "I don't see you as a tease," I say when she climbs off my lap. "We both need more time to heal and before today, I didn't have anyone who could help me heal in the way that I sense you can, Rhiana."

She snuggles closer to me, resting her head against my chest. "Thanks. That's so sweet of you to say. You're a true gentleman. Yes, we both need more time to heal, and I'm counting on you as well to help me do that. And part of the process is kissing and snuggling, which I hope you'd like to continue, because I sure as hell would."

My actions speak for themselves, holding her and kissing her and enjoying every wonderful second of it, while the music plays on, now into the slow part, slow and beautiful. "The adagio," Rhiana explains to me. "Most concertos have an adagio movement, just like the start of some relationships. Although, I wouldn't exactly call this a slow start. I mean, I didn't even neck with

Sam on our first date."

"You're doing me one better because I wouldn't call this a date. At least it didn't start out that way. A prologue perhaps. Or, if we're talking music, an overture."

"Ooo, I just love your metaphors. That turns me on, you know. A guy who can think in metaphor."

"I'll give you more of them if it induces you to take your bra off. Really, I've got a whole bag of metaphors. Loads and loads of them. Kidding, just kidding," I say, watching her laugh. "Well, sort of," I add. "I mean, I respect what you told me about not being ready for going further. On the other hand..."

She laughs harder, a belly-holding, face-reddening laugh that warms me to the bone. Then she says, "Aaron, I haven't had a decent laugh since, well, you can imagine since when. And I have a feeling that it won't be long before I am emotionally ready to take my bra off--and everything else that goes with it. Speaking of metaphors, I mean that metaphorically as well as literally, by the way. She throws her arms around me once again and says, "Meanwhile, I'd love to do this some more. If that's okay with you."

"Like you'd think I'd object. More than okay. Let's proceed."

Once again, we plunge back in, "pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, where hushed awakenings are dear," wrote another poet whose name escapes me. We kiss and cuddle while the music plays on and my emotions run wild and my libido simmers in the heat of the moment in this precious space of time on this cold winter afternoon, keeping intimate company with this amazing woman.

*****

Herman Schuster, her dad, comes home while I'm at the door, coat and boots back on, preparing to leave. He's a big six-footer, with a full head of gray hair, slicked straight back. We shake hands when Rhiana introduces us. My contact with him is brief--I suspect that she and Roslyn will fill him in later.

I walk to my car with a very different mindset than when I began my little hike today. Somehow, this cold, blustery January day doesn't seem so cold and blustery. I'm tempted to pinch myself to make sure I didn't dream it all up. A case of serendipity, Rhiana had said. I agree, amazed at what a heavy dose of serendipity will do to soothe an aching heart.