Dissoluteness Ch. 03

He leaned against the chest near the wall, arms folded over his chest. She drained the bottle of water her eyes locked on his.

"Can you make it up the stairs."

"I think so."

He opened the door and she slid off the table, clutching the blanket around her shoulders. THe climb up the stairs was a challenge. Her legs seemed to be made of jelly. In the workroom, she sat on the couch. He placed a plate of fruit on the table in front of her.

"Eat. You need the calories."

She picked up a bunch of grapes and popped one in her mouth. As she chewed the grape she looked at him.

"Why do you do this?"

"Call it an avocation."

"You gave me that card in the bookstore that afternoon. Why me."

"You seemed to need it."

"How did you know I would come to your store."

"I didn't. That was a happy coincidence."

She sat and thought for a moment, eating grapes and drinking from another bottle of water.

"Do I come back next week?"

"If you so choose."

Her eyes never left his face.

"May I get dressed."

He nodded to the box and she saw that it was unlocked and open.

She stood and let the blanket fall from her shoulders. She turned at the table to face him and began to put on her clothes moving intentionally and, she thought, provocatively. She saw that he was watching her as but not with the look of lust or desire that she anticipated. It seemed to be more of a study, as if he was noting every one of her moves, her expressions and her thoughts. When she was dressed he merely nodded.

As she prepared to leave the store she found she was disappointed in a way and now more confused than she had been since she started this.

At home she sat on the couch watching some inane TV sitcom. She wasn't really watching it, she was lost somewhere in thought.

What the hell am I doing? What is it about Damion that keeps me returning? What am I feeling?

She was still mulling the questions in her mind when her husband came in from his night out. He stopped again at the door surprised that she was still up.

"You sick?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"You are normally in bed asleep at this hour."

She shrugged and stood up. She let the fleece throw fall from her shoulders. She had her back to him but had she been watching she would have seen his eyes go wide as he saw that instead of the floor length flannel nightgown she was wearing a filmy lace lingerie that just barely covered her ass. He also noted that she was not wearing the panties that would normally have gone with it. Before he could recover enough to make a comment, she was gone from the room. When he got to the bedroom she appeared to be sleeping soundly. He stood for a long time looking down at her before he crawled into his side of the bed.