Red Rock

"Ten sounds great." I said, smiling into the phone. "Oh, and I'm at the El Abre." I said. "Still here." raising my eyebrows, "Just kidding. I went home. But I'm back. It's such a great hotel." I said leaning a little too far into the goofiness, rolling my eyes, "Good lord. Sorry." I said with half a chuckle.

"You're funny. I remember that about you." He said. I could hear the smile on his face. "Let's meet at the Lift Bar, its right next to the elevators in the casino. I'm looking forward to seeing you again Daphne."

"Lift Bar at ten. Perfect. Great. See you then Marcus." I said and hung up. I needed to throw up.

***

The door to my room closed behind me with a click and the hallway seemed to suddenly stretch out for miles in front of me, my heart banging away inside my chest. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Now walk.

By the time I reached the elevator I felt better, calmer. The heels felt good, the dress felt good. There was no bra I could wear with this dress but everything was staying in place, even the hem was staying just above my knees. Elegance and confidence to spare.

I pressed the call button on the elevator and one of the doors behind me opened immediately. A man and a woman in their early thirties got out in the middle of a discussion. He held the door for her and she walked out, she kept talking as she looked me up and down and fixed me with a level stare.

He followed and also looked me up and down giving me a grin that was far more friendly and continued holding the door as I entered. I thanked him as we brushed past each other, his gaze moving from my ass to my eyes, an expression of lusty admiration passing over his face. "Thank you." I said with slightest smile I could manage.

Turning to press the button on the control panel, my eyes lifted to look back into the eyes of his waiting companion. I let my smile fade and I looked up as the doors closed.

I turned to look at myself in the mirror inside the elevator. The dress hugged me perfectly without being too tight. My already long legs looked almost ridiculously long, my calves were flexed, my little boobs had just enough shape, showing maybe a hint of nipple. I didn't look twenty-five, I looked forty-five and pretty fucking good. This was going to fun.

Leaving the elevator bay I turned right and walked past a patisserie until I came to a little lounge. I walked in slowly looking around. No one looked like Marcus. As I walked toward the bar I saw a table card that read, "El Abre Ultra Lounge." Shit. I pulled my phone out of my clutch to check the time. 10:02. Fuck.

"Hi." I smiled at the bartender. "I'm looking for the Lift Bar." I said, eyebrows raised hopefully.

"Sure." He said, "It's right next to the elevators." pointing back the way I had come.

"I must have missed it." I said. "Thank you." I smiled, turning to leave.

***

My eyes found him the moment I walked into the bar and my stomach flipped. He was sitting next to a small table away from the main bar sipping from a tall glass of clear liquid dressed much the same way as I remembered - tightly tapered dark dress pants, a glacier white dress shirt open at the neck and a dark purple sport jacket. He saw me a moment later and stood, watching me walk toward him.

Suddenly, I was aware of the sway of my hips, my heels striking the floor and my breasts bouncing ever so slightly under the fabric of my dress. He drank me in, a big smile spreading across his face, pushing his cheeks up, creating crows feet next to his eyes. If he'd been wearing a hat, he'd have pushed it half way back on his head.

As I came to him, his hands came out to me palms up and I placed my hands in his. He leaned in, pulling me to his body, his mouth below my ear. My head tilted automatically, exposing my neck to him. He inhaled deeply and whispered, "I remember you." His open lips touched my neck and closed against my skin triggering a tiny involuntary moan high in my throat.

My eyes closed, I breathed him in and his scent raced through my brain lighting fires, ringing bells, screaming at my neurons with new information, "Wake up! Wake up! He's Back! It's the Marcus Molecule!"

The world spun away from me, knocked off its axis by the collision of his lips with my skin. A delicious, crippling current shot up through the base of my skull and fizzed across my scalp temporarily short-circuiting the autonomic imperative to breathe. He drew back from me and his smile reconnected my breathing circuit. I inhaled as if coming up from deep water. I needed to sit.

"Marcus," is all I could manage, more breathily than I intended. I crossed my legs and giving my hem a little tug, I looked at him levelly trying to get back on axis. "What a friendly welcome." I said with a wide-eyed smile. "How've you been?" Shifting in my chair I realized I was moist.

He laughed, "Not bad. Not bad." He said earnestly leaning back in his chair, clearly amused by my reaction to his greeting.

A server appeared and asked for our order.

Marcus looked at me, "I'll have a gin martini with a twist." I said.

"Vodka on the rocks." He said, turning his high wattage smile full on me. "My God Daphne, You look terrific." He said with a laugh, gesturing to my dress and heels. "No horseback riding tonight, then."

"Ha! No. No riding tonight." I laughed, blushing fiercely. "What a sight that would be." I said.

Now it was his turn to fix me with a level gaze, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

"No." I said, holding up a hand, "That would be a hot mess. The very definition of a hot mess." I said.

"If you say so." He said, with a rueful smile. "So how are Chris and the ...?" He said trying to shift into polite territory.

"No." I said. I cut him off, shaking my head.

"Oh-kay." He said, nodding, slightly confused. He continued, "Okay. Your idea then. Let's hear about it."

"Idea. Right." I said, exhaling. Shit. How to do this? I had so many ideas I wanted to talk about with him and none of them came with an easy opening. Maybe just dive right in with the big one; What did you do to me? See where that goes. I mean, total vulnerability followed by almost certain humiliation, how bad could it be?

The server arrived with drinks.

"Thank you, Amber." He said, smiling up at the server as she set the drinks on the little table.

"You're welcome, Marcus." She said with an impish, sidelong smile and walked off. I watched her perfectly shaped butt undulating under her tight skirt as she moved away. I looked at him. He shrugged and grinned, holding his drink up to toast.

"We've worked together." He said. We touched our glasses and sipped. "You were saying..."

"Was I?" I grinned. "Right. Well actually there's no idea." I said, wrinkling my nose and grinning. I sipped, pausing for effect. "It was just a ruse to get you here, and ply you with drink until you've lost your ability to make good decisions." I said. "At which time I drag you back to my room and seduce you." I said, taking another sip, looking at him over the rim of my glass.

He immediately turned in his chair, raised his hand beckoning and called, "Amber, I'm going to need another round."

He turned back and we both broke into laughter.

He pointed to me and said, "Ohh," holding up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart in the universal gesture of 'so close.' I drew my fingers across my forehead and flicked away imaginary perspiration and mouthed the word 'whew.'

More laughter, each of us rocking back and forth in our chairs the laughter rolling out of us like steam.

Then I stopped cold, the laughter instantly suppressed, "Seriously though, let's go," I motioned with my eyes over my shoulder and started to stand, "Bring your drink, it's getting late." I tapped the non-existent watch on my wrist.

A fresh round of laughter crashed over us.

As the laughter subsided and we caught our breath, our cheeks and eyes congested with levity, we traded furtive glances. His eyes smiled, "I like you," he said, taking a pull of vodka. He leaned back in his chair, grinning broadly. "You are bloody funny." He said, his elbow on his chair, his forefinger against his temple. "Who the fuck are you?"

Who am I? I was momentarily thrilled. He wanted to know about me. My favorite subject. But then I began to feel that maybe I wasn't ready to hand over that kind of control just yet. What if my answer wasn't funny enough or interesting or sexy enough? And besides, I had my own questions, some of which were about the very subject of who the fuck I was, or thought I was. Very touchy subject lately.

"Ah, yes, who the fuck am I?" I said, setting my drink down. Big breath. "Maybe I don't know." I said, with a whimsical tone, just the remnants of laughter still on my lips. "Actually I do," I said with a bit more resolution. "I do know who I am. I'm just not sure where I am right now." I said. "I'm figuring it out, but ... I'm figuring it out." I nodded.

"Where are you?" He said. "Hmm. Can you ... describe your surroundings?" He said with a laugh.

I turned away, searching the room. "Well," I said, turning back to him, "I'm with you right now. Which is where I want to be right now. Having a wonderful time. And ... it looks like a place," I said, looking around, "I don't go very often, or, haven't anyway. But I like it. I like the view, the way it smells. The possibilities. And the way it makes me feel. Like I might find answers." I said.

Before he could ask me what answers I was looking for I said, "Actually, I have a question. Have you ever..." I paused. Am I really going down this road? How far? How far did I need to go?

"What does the 'S' stand for?" I said.

"The 'S?'" he said.

"The 'S' as in Marcus S. Coursi." I said. "You know...your name?"

"That's not what you wanted to ask." He said. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you what the 'S' stands for but first, you tell me what you were going to ask me before you chickened out just then." He said.

I looked past him, my elbow on the chair, my finger on my temple pressing so hard it began to hurt. Another big breath.

"Okay," I said, then held up a finger with one hand while I took a big sip of gin with the other.

"Ever heard of the self-licking lollipop?" I said, matter-of-factly.

"A which?" He said, truly puzzled.

"A self-licking lollipop. Also known as the self-licking ice cream cone." I said, automatically illustrating the difference by flipping my hand back and forth at the wrist. "I feel like I'm in the process of moving from one lollipop to another at the moment. Since I met you, actually." I said, happily making perfect sense to myself.

With the confused chuckle of someone presented with a riddle from a child he said, "Could you be just little less opaque?"

I reached for my drink and realized it was nearly gone. Better slow down. I sipped and leaned forward, putting the glass back on the table. "What cologne do you wear?" I said, raising my face and inhaling.

"Cologne?" He said, thinking for a moment. "I... don't wear cologne. Just deodorant."

I leaned back in my chair, beginning to feel the lubrication of the gin. "Really?" I said, my eyes searching the room. So that smell, that's just you, I thought.

He leaned back and crossed his arms, then gestured for me to continue. Okay then.

"Have you ever opened a book," I said, becoming more serious, ready to tell him my whole story now, desperate to know if he could see into me, help me orient myself to him being in the same world as me. Help me understand if he was the cause of ... my symptoms. If he could understand what I was about to tell him, "that you've never read, to a random page and just started reading?" I said.

His arms unfolded and his finger began trailing back and forth across his lower lip as he listened.

I continued, "No idea who the characters are, or who you should care about, or what's happened to that point in the story and certainly not even a clue about how it might end?" I paused. "But you opened it to a really good part, maybe the best part, and after just a few lines it's drawn you in." I said, watching him. "And now you're well and truly fucked, because you can't go back and start at the beginning." I paused, tears threatening, "You can only read on from here to the end."

I looked over to my glass, then picked it up and turned it over, draining the remainder into my mouth.

I looked back to him and I as he began to form words I said. "Why did you come tonight?" Looking at him with an honesty that made him shift in his chair.

He turned away, his hand coming up to the top of his head, his fingertips plowing furrows through the tightly trimmed hair at the top of his skull. Then he looked up.

"I have opened that book." He said. "I opened it once a long time ago and I swore I'd never do it again. It almost broke me." He said. "But I realized that every book worth reading, every song worth listening to, every film worth watching is already in progress. Every person is already in the middle of living." He said. "And I'm living. I'm alive. I'm worth reading." He paused. "And now, If I find a book ..." And here the analogy became flimsy for him. "If I find someone I want to love, then I do. Sometimes it's terrifying, but I want to live."

He continued, "Everyone seems to think finding the right book is the hard part. Figuring it out is the hard part. No. That's easy. It happens all the time. We're sort of built for that. Doing whatever you need to do to be alive, to be alive to yourself, that's the hard part." He said. He drained the rest of his drink.

"Why did I come tonight?" He grinned, "The moment I saw you sitting in that ridiculous bird chair out there I wanted to know you. And then you drove away and ... I thought I'd never see you again." He said, then breathed in, filled his lungs completely and exhaled the answer, "I couldn't stop thinking about you. And then you came back." He looked away briefly then back for my reaction.

His answer, so unexpected, knocked everything loose inside of me like a small earthquake. Questions began falling off the shelves of my mind. Did I believe him? Had he really been thinking about me the way I'd been thinking of him? Why would he lie at this point?

I began to dismantle him with my eyes, looking for clues, examining everything, every piece of him; his eyes, his mouth, his hands and face. How he sat. His coordinates in the universe. Could I reach him and what would it cost me? Was this man the force that had taken up residence inside me for the last month? Was he some kind of answer I thought I was looking for? Was he a question I needed to ask? Was he another lollipop that licked itself? Was he vicious or virtuous? Was he was a book that I had carelessly opened and now couldn't put down?

"I love my husband." I said, using words that I knew to be safe to stabilize myself, to get my bearings.

"Yeah?" He nodded.

"But this is not about love." I said. "Love is not enough somehow. And I don't know why. Isn't it supposed to be enough?" I asked.

"Why did you call me?" He said. He leaned forward. "You want me to tell you how it ends? A nice tidy ending that you can take back with you? End of chapter. Back to your life. Then you'll know, you'll understand right? The problem is, the more you understand, the less you live." He said, his eyes digging into me.

"When did it start being okay to stop wondering at yourself? To just let yourself live Daph?" He said.

"Like when we were kids." He smiled broadly. "When living was wide open wonder." He leaned back. "We loved ourselves. Right? And the world seemed to love us back." He paused, looking into me. "I think this is about love Daphne. I think love is just bigger and tougher and more complicated than you think."

I shook my head my like a child refusing to open her mouth for another bite but I couldn't stop it from coming out. "I can't stop thinking about you." I said. "And I think I need to keep ... I need to know you." I said. "At least for a few more pages." I laughed.

I looked over at the empty glass on the table willing it to fill with gin. No luck.

"Okay," he said. "But I you need to tell me about Chris." He turned and motioned to Amber.

"Okay. That's fair." I said. "Alright." Big breath.

Amber set two glasses of water on the table and swished away.

I told him everything. Chris' hot wife fantasies, the hotel bar meet ups. The fact that I even found it all pretty arousing. I told him about the distance that had grown between us. And then, I told him what had changed in me the day I met him. The orgasms. Even the one with Petunia. That it was beyond me to explain. That I couldn't share it with Chris. I told him that I was even wondering if my marriage was over, something I hadn't admitted to myself until right now. I was angry, I was confused. But most of all, I wanted answers.

He listened intently. His elbow on the chair, his finger in his temple.

"Petunia?" He said. "Wow."

"I'm desperately attracted to you." I said. "But I'm not sure how to live with what that means."

"How long have you been married?" He said.

"Twenty years." I said, grinning ruefully.

He paused to consider. "Do you trust him?" He let the question hang for just a beat, "Do you believe what says about why he wants to watch you with other men? About what his reaction would be?"

I had never really answered that question. Twenty years. Did I trust him? I had always filled in the blanks before I could think about it; heart-ache and divorce and embarrassment. Being alone and starting over. Failure. Abject fucking failure.

"And if you do trust him, if you believe him, what are you afraid of?" He said.

I pulled at my lip and looked around the room, thinking. "I do trust him." I said. Discovering it to be true. "I believe what he says. I think he may end up feeling things more intensely than he's anticipating, or feeling things he didn't anticipate at all, but yeah, I trust him." I said. "If, something like that happened."

"So what am I afraid of?" I said. "Well," I laughed. "I guess I'm afraid of not being normal, of being ... depraved."

We both laughed at the frailty of the words when spoken out loud.

"I mean, how do I be the mom at home, the professional at work...?" I trailed off, chuckling again. "I know. Everyone's weird. Kinks I don't want to think about honestly." I said. The thought of the Jims came into my mind. Gross.

"What if I fall in love?" I said.

"What if you do?" He said. "There's a lot of room inside love for people who are willing to live."

"Is there?" I said.

"I'll show you." He said.

He stood up and held out his hand. I looked up at him for a moment then stood and took his hand in mine. He pulled me to him, our eyes locked and my stomach flipped. He paused with his lips an inch from mine, his hand slid around my hip. We traded breath. His mouth opened slightly, he leaned in and his mouth touched mine and I could feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of my dress as our bodies came together.

This new man, this strange new man pressed lips I did not know against mine. They slid new and alive against mine for the first time in this moment and an intersection was created where none had been only moments before.

My mouth opened to mimic his movements and I tasted him, his breath, his saliva, his chemical intent. His body pressed tighter as he pulled at my hip, his mouth and tongue slowly sampled me. Between my legs a tingling bloomed into a low, warm thrumming and I bloomed, open entirely to him, to the answers that would come.

***

"Water? Wine? Gin?" He said. "Anything?" He looked up from behind the marble bar that separated us in his little kitchen.

His apartment was a small but stunning two-bedroom Sky Suite at the El Abre. "Unfortunately it's temporary." He said as he'd unlocked the door and shown me inside.