Past, Present and Future Ch. 01

There was a door at the end of the hall, a full-length mirror mounted on it. I stared at myself in it, wondering how I'd gotten into this.

Whatever 'this' really was.

If Tony had merely shown me around the place, taken me out to admire his flower gardens and graciously put me up as a guest for the weekend in return for my company, I would have understood it. If he'd tried to jump me the minute we got through the door, well, I'd been prepared for that and was pretty well anticipating winding up in his bed at some point anyway - my wardrobe was in my purse, right?

But just a bland 'leave your clothes in the closet and play your flute for me' had left me bewildered.

Eventually, the girl in the mirror shrugged with me. I'd come this far and my stiff-necked pride wasn't up for a cab just yet. I wasn't sure how it had come to this, but there weren't many options open.

I took off my blouse and skirt, hung them carefully on a spare hanger in the closet, hung my purse on a second hanger. Inviting Tony after class had been an impulse move; my undies were nothing special. Well, he wasn't apparently going to be looking at them anyway.

I stood there for a moment, reached back for the clasp of my bra. Undone, the bra started to slide. My upper arms caught it. The girl in the mirror stared back at me. What in hell had I been I thinking?

I could still back out; I knew that. Prudent common sense arm-wrestled curious pride and left ruefully, nursing a sprained shoulder.

My arms came away from my body and the bra fell. I caught it, looped it over the hanger with my purse. Someday, some genius engineer designer goddess will invent a bra that doesn't leave a crease under your boobs, one with straps that don't cut into your shoulders. I rubbed the red marks with my hands, just like I did every night. But this wasn't every night, was it?

At least I'd shaved on Wednesday. I fumbled through the purse on its hook, pulled out my hairbrush and spent two minutes trying to repair the damage the car ride had left. My makeup had somehow survived.

Hair done, I looked at my panties, white cotton, so ordinary, blah. I started to push them down off my hips, but changed my mind. Not yet.  Leaving them, I picked up my flute case, pulled back my shoulders and walked warily into the kitchen.

Tony was bent over the island, his back to me. A large chef's knife in his hand, he was dicing something on a chopping board. Bowls of this and that lay in front of him. Steam was rising from a pot on the stove and something in a frypan was beginning to sizzle.

"I thought I told you to leave your clothes in the closet?" he said quietly.

Did the man have eyes in the back of his head?

Irate, mortified, I blushed from head to toe. I'd given in, come all this way, was standing there half-naked and he hadn't even bothered to look at the prize he'd won. Hey, boy! Desirable naked sexy girl over here! Hello?

I spun around, stomped back down the hall. Bare feet on a flagstone floor made it a less thunderous stomp than I would have liked, but it was what I had.

Scarlet, I thumbed my panties off, hung them on a second hanger all by themselves, closed the door. I looked at myself in the mirror.

I was pretty enough, the mirror showed that. I had the legs, the boobs, the bum, the blue eyes, the blonde hair; I'd been told that I could do very well in the peeler bars on Dundas Street. But that was a big No for me. Don't get me wrong; I'm proud of how I look and there's nothing shameful about anybody's body, but it just wasn't me.

I swept my hair back, pulled my shoulders back. Yeah, solid. I took a deep breath. I could do this.

Without really looking at me, he motioned with the knife. "You can sit over there," he said, indicating a tall stool in the middle of the floor, opposite him on the other side of the island. He continued to chop, his eyes on the knife.

I felt my flush slowly return. No, not anger. Well, maybe. What in hell was wrong with the man?  Here I was, starkers, and he was paying me no more attention than the damn-all he paid me in the lab. Was he a eunuch? Perversely, having been offended by his initial offer, I was now offended by his lack of attention - how dare  he not perv out on my innocent, delectable nudity?

"Are you warm enough?" he asked from out of nowhere. It was a quick blink of humanity. I wondered what was going through his mind.

"Warm enough, thank you. What would you like to hear?" I asked. "I'm afraid I didn't bring my music."

"You choose," he said. "Brahms, Rossini, Debussy, Telemann — whatever you're comfortable with. Or improvise something. Something soft." At least he knew music, I thought.

"What are you making?" I asked, stepping around the island past him. I went to the stool and sat down, crossing my legs, opened the case and assembled the instrument.

"'Saltimbocca di Pollo alla Romana' , just like Mama used to make." The Italian flowed off his tongue like liquid gold; even the name sounded delicious. "Medallions of chicken and prosciutto ham rolled up and fried, with a pan sauce using white wine, shallots, capers and tomatoes. Green salad and some wild rice on the side."

His eyes flipped up to me, this time openly running over my body. Mama was suddenly somewhere else now. His stare started at my feet, ran up my legs, lingered over my belly and boobs, wound up with his eyes on mine. I shivered; there was no doubt in my mind that he saw me as a woman now.

"You're too pretty to sit like that. Uncross your legs."

I thought I'd been blushing before...

I did what he said, propped my feet on the cross-bars of the stool. His eyes now studied my sex.

"Play now. Please."

I took a breath, began Con te partirò,  'Time to Say Goodbye'. It works well in solo and I knew it well enough.

Tony stopped his work for a moment, closed his eyes. A small smile of appreciation appeared on his face. He started his preparations again, flipped rolled chicken into the pan. As it started to sizzle, his eyes leisurely examined my nudity, his pleasure at what he saw clear to me.

The song ending, I moved on to a Bach partita, something I'd learned a long time ago. He kept one eye on the chicken, one eye on me. I hesitated once or twice, found my way. His smile grew and my confidence with it.

Tony paused, opened a bottle of white wine. He sniffed the cork, nodded to himself in approval and poured two glasses. He came around the island, moved a second stool to rest beside me, put the glass on it. I was surprised when he held the cork beneath my nose. I stopped playing.

"What am I supposed to be smelling?"

"A lesson," he said. "If the cork smells good, the wine will probably taste good, too. The cork should smell of wine, maybe of wood, or of nothing at all. If it smells musty or mouldy or like wet paper, it's been 'corked' meaning the wine's not fit to drink."

He took the cork away, nodded at the wine on the stool.

"If you wish. But please keep playing. It's very pleasant."

I took a sip of bottled sunshine, felt a different flush on my skin as I resumed the partita. It was one of my favourites. I closed my eyes and concentrated on it. I faltered for a second when Tony's footsteps told me that, instead of going directly back to his cooking, he was circling me. I could feel his eyes on me. Once around, then twice, slower the second time. Well, he couldn't see more than he already had; I kept playing. In a moment, the cooking noises started again, but I could still feel his eyes.

A few minutes later, I watched Tony put lids on the pots, take the salad to the table. Now he came around to my side of the island, turned a chair and sat down to watch me play. I'd performed before, even a couple of concerts; I was used to butterfly tummy and stage fright. This was entirely different. The man was unspeakably polite; he hadn't touched me, hadn't done anything but look and listen appreciatively, but I was unnerved.

I finished playing a piece, paused for a sip of wine. He smiled warmly. "Thank you," he said. "You're very good. Would you like to play more or would you prefer to eat now? I can hold dinner a few minutes."

"Eat?" I echoed, then pushed past unstated boundaries. "And then what?"

"Whatever appeals to me at the time, Stephanie. Maybe even your lab report."

"That's it?" He wasn't ignoring me now; his eyes were openly examining my breasts, his approval obvious. The signals were totally mixed.

"Are you having such a terrible time, Stephanie?" His eyes twinkled as he lifted them to mine. "I am, let me assure you, having a very pleasant time. You play well and are very, very pretty. I've passed worse evenings."

"And then?"

He looked at me with a slight smile.

"We'll think of something," he said.

+

The chicken was excellent. I could see why he had cooked himself. Escoffier could take lessons.

"This is delicious!" I exclaimed. "Who taught you?"

"Mama, like I said." He grinned for a moment. "The prototypical Italian mama, Stephanie. About four feet in every direction and if you didn't ask for a third helping, it was a mortal insult."

I didn't ask for thirds, but I did ask for seconds.

He took off his jacket when we did the dishes afterwards. Finished, he held out his hand. "Come," he said. "Let me show you the best light of the day."

His hand in mine was firm, strong, warm from the dishwater. He led me outside onto the deck. There were a number of wicker chairs and he arranged two of them, held one for me to sit down. The wickerwork felt odd on my bare bum, but it wasn't uncomfortable. I could see that bareness would probably bring me a host of new sensations, of experiences.

I started to say something, but he held up his hand. I couldn't make out what he meant me to listen for. Then I realized - it was nothing. It was silent, far quieter than I was used to in my city world. No car noises, no distant music, nobody talking, no sirens. It was very pleasant. I settled into the chair, looked at the scenery, felt my mood improve still more.

He looked at his watch.

"It's about time," he said softly. He pointed to a gap between two small stands of trees in the middle distance. "Watch there."

My jaw dropped just a little a few minutes later when four whitetail deer, two does and two fawns, emerged from one woodlot and calmly crossed into the other.

I don't think I'd ever seen deer in the wild before. When I turned to him, he was smiling. "They're pretty predictable," he said. "It's coming onto evening. They're on their way to lay up for the night."

We sat for a few more minutes. There was more to this man than it first appeared.

There was a dark shape high up in the sky, a bird soaring, its wings not moving. I pointed at it. "What's that?"

He looked up. "Too far away to be sure, but I'd guess a red-tailed hawk." He grinned. "Good neighbours for most farmers. They keep the mice down."

I thought about that, then, "May I ask you a question?"

He nodded.

"You were a firefighter. What brought you here?"

I could see his face tighten.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "You don't..."

"Firemen work long hours. My wife got fed up and left me, moved in with my nine-to-five best friend."

"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry. That must have hurt." It was a clue to the man.

"I couldn't avoid seeing them and it seemed like a good time to move on. There was an opportunity fighting forest fires out west. That's very different than in a city, but I had some solid training and experience under my belt and they gave me a chance. It was outdoors, which I'd always liked. It was a good time. In the off-season, we did a lot of controlled burns, which was a lot more fun than inspecting restaurant kitchens for grease build-up."

His eyes looked at something I couldn't see, something very far away, maybe just a memory. "It was a solid team, good guys, people you could depend on. We spent a lot of time moving around by helicopter.

"There's a saying, 'There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots'. The pilot who flew us most often in fire season must have coined that phrase, 'cause Micky firmly intended to die of old age. He wasn't cowardly, just prudent. He put his ass on the line more than once, pushing the envelope to extract guys who'd been cut off by shifting winds. The team treasured him, trusted him with our lives.

"But sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't. There was a massive fire, a firestorm. Know what that is?"

"Not really."

"Heat from any fire rises. In a really big storm, the heat is incredible and it rises very quickly. Air to feed the flames has to come from somewhere. It gets sucked in from every direction, close to ground level, sometimes at almost hurricane speeds. It's scary as all hell.

"In rugged country, mountains especially, it produces all kinds of unpredictable gusts, updrafts, downdrafts. Micky was a damned good pilot, but there's always luck in flying and his ran out. A gust shifted the chopper sideways, no way to see it coming. The rotor clipped a rock and that was all she wrote."

My hand came up, gently touched the scars on his face. Another clue to his distance.

He shrugged. "I lived, but I'd fought my last fire. There was a pension of sorts and a bit of insurance, but I had no place to go, nothing to do once I got there and nobody waiting for me in any case."

I nodded. Cut loose from a society he cherished, I thought. No wonder...

"Leo needed company, I guess, and invited me to come back east again. I started going to classes in town to keep myself busy; the alternative was to learn everything I never wanted to know about sugar beets.

"Then one day the cops were waiting in the yard when I got home. A month later, Leo's lawyer called me about the will and it turned out that I owned the farm and a bunch of other stuff. Most of the land's leased out now to neighbours and the farm equipment's been sold. The 'other stuff' is doing well; farmers aren't stupid. He had investments, owned a bar and shares in a couple of stores. It's enough that I can pretty much do what pleases me."

"Hence me," I said.

"For a start," he said. He surprised me by reaching out and running a fingertip tenderly over the side of my face.

"How are you doing?" he asked gently.

"Good. Good, thank you," I said. I thought about it for a second. What had been intended as a routine politeness was actually true. I wondered about that.

"Although," I admitted with a wry smile, "I'll confess to still feeling a bit under-dressed."

"'Under-dressed'? Come with me."

He again held my hand as we went back into the house. He had me stand in front of a floor-length mirror.

"Wait here a moment," he said and stepped into his bedroom. I spent the time examining the other girl, the one in the mirror. She'd started to seem like a stranger to me, somebody I couldn't predict or understand. To my eyes now, she looked almost brazen. Yesterday she'd somebody fairly normal; today...?

Today she was stark-naked in a handsome farmhouse with a man she barely knew. And feeling fairly good about it. It was that I was still struggling to wrap my head around.

"Close your eyes," he said from behind me, his voice soft.

His hands slipped over my shoulders, my neck. Something cool and heavy coiled around my throat.

"How's that?" he asked.

I opened my eyes to see a heavy necklace, wider than my thumb, complex in its design, with shiny coils and links and pieces intertwined and woven about each other.

This was no mass-produced big box store trinket. It was elegant, impressive, something you might see worn by a famous face on a gala red carpet. I had certainly never seen anything like it in person.

"Don't wear it in the pool," he said. "Chlorine and silver don't mix."

My eyes wide, my whole attention was locked on its feel under my fingertips, the way it felt on my neck. His hands came down softly on my shoulders. At his touch, I raised my eyes to his before looking again at myself in the mirror.

I was stunning. I was amazed at how good it looked, how good it made me  look.

"Thank you," I whispered. "It's very pretty, Tony. But, no. It's too much."

His hands slipped down, clasped me around my waist. He pulled me back against him into a hug. It was the first time he'd touched me in anything but the most casual way. Now that it had finally happened, I found it comforting somehow. I was beginning to finally see the man's human core.

"Really?" He smiled, a real smile.

My fingers kept tracing the coils of silver.

"Where is it from?" I asked.

"Dubai, years ago. I was on vacation. The pattern is called Persian Chainmail.

"I bought it thinking I might have a use for it someday. It turns out I did, just not right away. So, tonight...? Stephanie, I couldn't afford to give you a fair price for the way your music and your beauty have pleased me. You'll have to settle for the necklace."

It was time to put an end to that. I turned to look at him in the mirror, spoke softly but firmly. "Tony, forgive me for putting it this way, but Stephanie's not for sale. I'm a big girl; I knew what weekend was about before I got into your car, but I didn't come here for this." My fingertip swept over the necklace links. "I can't and I won't.

"I'll stay without it, Tony, but if you insist on my accepting it, then please call me that cab."

His eyes changed. For the first time, he seemed just a little uncertain. And, maybe, a little bit impressed. Without moving his hands, his thumbs rose, swept softly over my skin.

"I'm sorry, Stephanie. I didn't mean to imply you could be bought. But you are an exceptionally lovely young woman and... how to put this?"

He paused, closed his eyes for a second in thought. One hand left my waist briefly, ran over the silver links on my skin. I found myself smiling at that touch.

"This looks good on you. It looks much better on you than it does in my drawer."

"It's too much," I repeated.

There was a faint smile on his face. "Too much for me to have been able to admire this all evening?" he said, pointing at my bareness in the mirror. His hand returned to my waist. He was smiling now.

"Or too much for..."

I gasped slightly in surprise as his hands rose, swept lightly over my breasts.

"...this?"

His hands fell again to my waist, fingers linked together.

I was shocked to realize how much I had welcomed that touch. He'd called me pretty, but this had been the first time he'd openly acknowledged me sexually. At least now we were close to familiar ground, to what I thought of as a normal boy-girl interaction, to a situation I could understand.

His hands moved down to my hips, turned me to face him. I found I was enjoying his touch - grizzly bear strength inside mitts of softest mink. My face rose to his.

His smile had become gentle. It was a warmer smile than I'd seen on him before.

"You're an enchantingly lovely young woman, Stephanie, and you're even more so when you wear this. That by itself pleases me. There's more, though. There's real pleasure in your eyes when you look at yourself wearing it and that pleases me still more.

"So, how about this, Stephanie? How about you wear it so long as you are here?"

I turned back to the mirror and admired the sight.

My nipples were still tingling from his light touch. I found myself what actually making love to him would feel like?

Looking back, I suppose it was then that I realized that I was comfortable being naked in front of him. This evening hadn't been anything like being with my former boyfriends, with whom sex had been half-clad and time-limited, in back seats or hoping nobody would take this jogging path for a few minutes. If this was seduction, I was finding to my surprise that I rather liked it.