What It Means to Fall in Love

"Sure," peeped Lisa. Shauna shot her an angry glance.

"The Cedars?" asked Alex, naming the exclusive and very expensive lunch spot where only the most powerful lawyers and judges dined.

"I can't, Mr. Thorndyke," said Shauna. "I've got the Turner file to--"

"Yeah," interrupted Carl. "And I got a lunch meeting with a client."

"Then what are you standing here for?" shot Alex.

"Oh...uh...It's not until 12:30."

"I see," said Alex. "In that case, Lisa, I guess it's you and me. Shauna, if you have any trouble whipping that file into shape, I'm sure Carl can give you a hand...or some other appendage."

Carl gulped.

"I think I can handle it," said Shauna.

"I bet you can," said Alex. He offered Lisa his arm and they started out of the office.

"Shaun, meet you at Grand Central, 5:30."

"OK, Lis. Have a nice time." Shauna hurried back to the desk.

Before they left the office, Alex stopped at the front desk and whispered something to the whiny voiced receptionist. The receptionist reached under her desk and flipped a switch activating the video camera concealed in the ceiling tiles of Alex Thorndyke's office

"Southwestern Pennsylvania, actually," said Lisa, responding to Alex's question about where they were headed for the weekend. "My Uncle has a farm there, so the whole family, about sixty of us, spend the weekend eating fried food, drinking Rolling Rock and talking about the Steelers."

She giggled and tossed her golden hair away from her face and sipped from her water glass.

As far as Alex could tell she wore no makeup yet her skin was luminous. Her eyes caught the dim light of the candle on their table and shot it around the dark, smoky room like lasers. Alex could not keep his eyes off her, nor could any of the other VIP's--judges, senators, celebrities--who dined regularly at the Cedars.

Seated at the booth directly behind Alex was a state senator, to his left a demure, gray-haired schoolmarm of a woman who just happened to be the toughest judge on the state supreme court. Alex had seen everyone from Rudy Giuliani to Meryl Streep to Hilary Clinton to Bruce Springsteen seated at these tables but it seemed to Alex that none had ever captured the looks from the crowd that this fresh-faced young girl was getting right now as some of the most powerful members of the New York Bar glared at Alex with envy.

Lisa seemed unaware of the attention she was getting from the clientele but was well aware that Alex was clearly taken with her, his fixed stare being the big tip-off

"Is there something on my face?" she asked.

Alex looked away self-consciously, ran his finger along the edge of his menu and said, "No, no, I just..." and his voice trailed off as he glanced up at her face again.

She smiled and Alex felt what seemed like a shot of electricity through his veins.

"So," she said, "what kind of menial labor are you putting my sister through that's keeping her from dining with us?"

Alex kept a straight face as he answered, "Dictation."

"But you're here, how can she..."

"I speak it into a recording device, she types it up."

"Ah, so the image of the secretary sitting on the boss' lap while he dictates is obsolete?"

"Obsolete and illegal."

"Actually, Shauna doesn't talk much about her work. But she seems to enjoy it. And she does speak highly of you."

Alex remembered Shauna's lifeless morning greetings and answered, "She does?"

"Mmm-hmmm. She says you're brilliant. And handsome." She took another sip of water and picked up her menu. "What's good here?"

"Everything. What do you like?"

"Do they have hamburgers?"

"You strike me as a chef salad, dressing on the side kinda gal."

"Puh-lease!" she retorted. "You asked me what I like. I don't like salad. I like hamburgers."

"Interesting."

"Oooh!," she said, spotting a particular item on the menu. "Alpine burger. Swiss cheese and the Cedars' own special sauce. I'm having that. How about you?"

"The same," said Alex as he closed his menu and set it on the table.

There was a slight pause as Lisa sipped her drink. A bead of water spilled from the side of her mouth and dribbled slowly down her chin. Alex reached across with his cloth napkin and wiped her face gently. Again, it was one of those small gestures he could not have imagined himself doing even an hour ago. But with Lisa it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

She smiled and thanked him, adding derisively, "Classy, Lisa. Real classy."

As Alex put the napkin back in his lap, his arm grazed the side of his suit jacket. Feeling something unfamiliar in the right side pocket, Alex reached in. "Oh, my God," he thought to himself. "I forgot about the lipstick."

It was at this moment that Lisa leaned across the table and said, "So, tell me, Mr. Thorndyke, what do you like?"

For the third time in the last half-hour, Alex had a serious hard-on.

There were actually four cameras in Alex's office; one pointed at Alex's chair, another focused on the faces of those sitting on the other side of Alex's desk, a third was focused on the conference area, and the fourth offered a master shot of the whole room. Alex had paid for the system from his own pocket--a drop from the very large bucket he had earned from his book sales.

The aging audio tape recorder built into the office in the late 70's failed him one too many times, in one case costing him a high-powered client so, without asking for permission, Alex had the cameras installed by his cousin's security firm over one labor day weekend. No one else in the firm knew of the system's existence.

Normally, Alex controlled the cameras from a switch under his desk; the switch at the receptionist's desk was installed as backup and Alex told those who might ask that it was for a new air cleaning system. No one ever asked. No one ever questioned Alex, such was the professional esteem he had won in such a short time.

The cameras recorded everything and the pressure microphones hidden strategically around the room synced up the sound with the image and the whole package was automatically recorded onto a computer program accessible only to Alex.

Shauna knew her boss to be a detail obsessed, unscrupulous attorney but she never imagined that later that night in the privacy of his penthouse apartment, Alex Thorndyke would sit in bed, a notebook computer on his lap, watching her perform a slow and sensuous strip tease. One of the four camera angles afforded Alex a superb view of Shauna's succulent tits and her hairy pussy. Another angle gave him a close-up of her pretty face and mouth as she sank to her knees and sucked the cock of a junior associate from personal injury.

Bubbly was not a word that one would use to describe Alex Thorndyke but anyone who saw him at lunch with Lisa that day would be hard-pressed to describe him in any other way.

He giggled at Lisa's humor, blushed at her many compliments--"Shauna never told me you were an author. You're that Alex Thorndyke, God, I loved that book. Loved it!"--and talked like a schoolboy about his many successes in the courtroom, like a brave warrior showing off his kill to the virgins in the village.

He also listened, my god, he listened! This was not one of his great strengths, unless there was a clear incentive. But today he hung on Lisa's every word--even when she wasn't talking about Alex. She waxed eloquent about the great American poets; he listened. She spoke with fervor about the power of the written word; he listened. She expressed her longings for adventure, her desire to travel, her fantasies of being a female James Bond or a 21st century Mata Hari; he listened.

She told charming, funny stories about growing up with, as she described it, "the skinny, pretty, and more popular Shauna;" he listened and thought privately, "Well, if Shauna's blowing guys on the Ninth Street Bridge, no wonder she's more popular."

He gingerly expressed his belief that, as far as beauty went, Shauna couldn't hold a candle to Lisa. She smiled and he became giddy with joy, his heart pounding, his palms sweating, his cock throbbing.

And it all ended much too soon when Lisa checked her watch and said, "Oh my god, it's after one. I have to go! I have an appointment with my dissertation advisor at one-thirty and I look--my god, I must look awful. I'm not even wearing lipstick!" and she reached into her purse.

Alex quickly took her hand, looked her in the eyes and said, "You don't need make-up. You look beautiful."

She blushed, pleased, and squeezed his hand in return. They stood that way for a moment until Alex pulled a hundred dollar bill and dropped it on the table. "Come on, I'll give you a ride," and he produced a cell phone, punched in a few numbers then spoke into it, "The Cedars." He took Lisa's arm and led her out of the restaurant.

Moments later, Alex helped Lisa into the limousine that he had so effortlessly summoned just a few moments earlier.

"Spence will take you wherever you need to go."

"I need to go to NYU."

"NYU, hear that, Spence"

"Yessir, Mr.Thorndyke."

Alex started to close the door behind Lisa but she grasped his hand tightly and said, "Ride with me."

"I have to get back to the off--"

"Please."

And so it was that Alex, for the first time in his professional life, called off work. Jumping into the limo seat beside Lisa, he pulled off his suit coat, a habit developed after he lost a client because the fussy heiress was 'offended' by his 'rumpled appearance,' He hung his jacket on a rack installed specifically for that purpose, pulled out his cell phone and dialed his office. Shauna answered on the first ring.

"Good afternoon, Alexander Thorndy--"

"Shauna, reschedule my 1:30."

"Mr. Thorndyke?"

"Move it to next week or, better yet, call Bernie Marx, see if he can take this one off my hands. If he's free at 1:30 then maybe--"

The limo was streaking through the Manhattan streets and Lisa put her arm through Alex's and inched closer. Her sweet scent distracted Alex ever so briefly and he stopped mid-sentence.

"Are you OK, Mr. Thorndyke?" asked Shauna. "Is anything wrong? Is Lisa still with you, you sound a little--"

"I'm fine, Shauna, I just had a slight change of plan. So call Patterson and see if they will--"

"Where's my sister? Is she with you?"

"Yes," he said more brusquely than he intended. "Now, call Patterson."

"But Mr. Thorndyke, please tell me. Is Lisa OK?"

Lisa was close enough to hear so she took the phone from Alex's hand and spoke into it.

"Hi, sweetie, it's me. I'm fine."

"Where are you?"

"Alex is taking me to NYU. Lunch ran late and so--"

"Alex?" asked Shauna incredulously. "You call him Alex? Nobody calls him Alex. What's going on?"

Trying to change the subject, Lisa said, "I really like Carl. I can see why you're so crazy about him. He's sweet and so cute."

The limo hit a bump and both Alex and Lisa gasped.

"What is going on?" said Shauna, sounding a bit parental.

Alex grabbed the phone. "Shauna, honey, please call Patterson and reschedule."

"Did you just call me honey?"

"Good-bye, Shauna."

He clicked off the phone

"I don't think your sister likes me," said Alex.

"I don't care." said Lisa as she grasped his arm a bit tighter. Alex was momentarily dumbstruck and before he could figure out what to say, Lisa had pulled her face to his and kissed him softly on the lips.

The kiss lasted just a few seconds and Alex again found himself speechless. He pulled back and looked into her bright green eyes.

"Lisa--"

"Shhh," she said, her finger to his lips. She kissed him again, longer this time, and Alex melted into her. He felt her velvet tongue gently reaching into his mouth and he responded by pulling her closer. It had been a very long time since Alex had kissed a woman and he suddenly felt like a schoolboy who needed to consult the manual before he could continue. Lisa, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do.

Alex extracted himself to ask Spence to raise the glass barrier between the front and back seats. Spence, a bit surprised, caught Alex's eye in the mirror. "Yessir, Mr. Thorndyke," said Spence with a jaunty smile. As the shield rose into place, he thought he could see Spence wink.

Alex focused his full attention on Lisa now.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said.

She kissed him again, her tongue reaching deeper now and he longed to reach for her breasts but didn't dare. So she did it for him, pulling his right hand to her and holding it onto her left breast. Alex's fingers fumbled with the pearl button that had attracted his attention when he first saw her in the office.

She wore no bra and as he fondled her silky breast he could feel his cock straining at the fabric of his Armani pants. She read his mind and with her left hand expertly unzipped his pants and firmly grabbed hold of his manhood. The limo hit another bump and Alex nervously lifted his head and started to look out the car window but Lisa pulled him back to her and whispered in his ear.

"Make love to me."

She still pulled at his penis, fighting the cotton fabric of his briefs until she freed him and Alex began to grind his hips. A moment later, he was surprised to feel Lisa's soft mouth wrapped around his cock. She swirled her tongue around the tip a few times before taking his shaft deeper, her mouth brushing lightly against his pubic hair. Lisa pulled back slowly, so slowly and Alex shivered with a pleasure that he never really known before.

She sucked on his cock in this way for a full minute, Alex eking out small chirps and groans of absolute ecstasy. When she stopped, her mouth moved up to his ear.

"Make love to me," she whispered. "Oh Alex, please. Please fuck me."

And with that Alex's hand reached up her skirt and yanked violently at her panties. They tore a little and Lisa moaned with delight. He pulled at them again and they tore off of her as she whimpered softly with a mixture of pleasure and pain.

Pushing her down onto the cool leather seat of the limo, he pulled her skirt up above her waist, exposing a soft bed of reddish blonde pubic hair. He could see her wetness and instinctively rammed two fingers into her cunt. The limo swerved again, the sudden motion pushing Alex's fingers deeper into Lisa and she registered her pleasure with a sharp intake of breath.

For reasons unknown to Alex and Lisa, Spence suddenly slammed on the brakes. Alex rolled onto the floor, Lisa falling on top of him.

"I'm sorry about that, sir," came Spence's voice over the intercom.

"No problem, Spence."

"We enjoyed it, Spence," added Lisa, and Alex laughed along with her.

"Anything I can do to help, ma'am."

Once on the plush carpet of the limo floor, they took just a moment to look into each other's eyes. Lisa kissed Alex gently and smiled. Alex was filled with a wonder he had never known and thought to himself, "Oh, I get it now. This is what it means to fall-in-love."

He noticed for the first time that the top three buttons of her blouse had come undone and her beautiful breasts peeked teasingly from behind her shirt. He reached for her and as she leaned forward her blouse fell open and he buried his head in the space between her tits. She giggled shyly for a moment but as his mouth found its way to her large areolas, she moaned.

In one effortless motion Lisa moved her hips and, before he knew it, Alex was inside her. As she rode him feverishly, Alex sucked on her breast, flicking her nipple with his tongue while thrusting his cock into her with intense passion.

As they both approached climax, Alex sensed a oneness of being that he had never known, a sensation so powerful that his eyes filled with tears. He tried to hold them back but a single tear overflowed from his eye and ran down the side of his face.

Lisa suddenly reared her head back, her face turned toward the roof of the limo and she moved herself up and down on Alex's rock-hard cock with intense delight. Her orgasm was close and she wanted to scream but not wanting to include Spence any more than she had to, she suddenly pushed Alex to the floor and fell on top of him, burying her head into his shoulder, her body quivering with orgasmic intensity.

The scream still wanted to escape so to stifle it she bit into Alex's shoulders. She bit so hard that, even through his neatly pressed white shirt, she broke his skin and Alex could feel blood seeping through his undershirt.

The pain of the bite mingled with his pleasure and he felt that tingling intensity that signaled an orgasm. As Lisa's orgasm intensified, she nuzzled her face into his neck and in addition to the thrust of her hips, she began to move them in a circular motion. Alex's orgasm was building within him; he thrust his cock into her with all the strength he could muster and within seconds he was shooting his load into her. Lisa's hips circled and this motion seemed to prolong his orgasm. Sensing this, she moved faster until his last shot of cum exploded into her.

At last they were still. Alex stayed inside her and though he was spent, Lisa continued the nearly imperceptible circling and Alex felt several aftershocks. "I never want to leave this car," he thought to himself. "I want to stay just like this for the rest of my natural existence."

"Ma'am? Where can I take you?

Lisa looked up and caught a glimpse of the Washington Square Arch.

"Anywhere is fine," she said, and within seconds, she and Alex were zipped and buttoned, sitting once again on the back seat. On the floor of the limo were Lisa's torn panties. Alex picked them up and, after a quick glance at Lisa, stuffed them into his suit coat pocket. She smiled and nuzzled in to him just as the limo jolted to a stop. Her hand brushed his shoulder and she felt the wetness of his blood.

"Oh my god, Alex, did I hurt you?"

"Yes."

He smiled.

"Oh, Alex, I am so..."

He interrupted her apology with a kiss. As they broke apart he asked her, "How are you getting back uptown?"

"I'll take a cab."

"I'll wait for you."

"Don't you have other appointments?"

"I don't know, I don't care."

"I may be an hour or two," she said.

"That's fine."

Lisa gently stroked his face with her hand. "You have the sweetest face," she said, and then, "Meet me right here at three?"

He smiled and nodded. Lisa kissed him quickly and ran off to her appointment, Alex watching her until she was out of sight. Sitting back in the limo, he spotted an elderly couple desperately trying to hail a cab. The woman stood on the curb nervously as the husband valiantly stood in the street, waving desperately but clearly terrified.

"Spence, pull up."

"Sir?"

"Pull up to that man. There, in the street."

"Yessir."

The car slowly pulled up in the front of the elderly gentleman and he stepped back up on the curb. Alex opened the door on their side and slid out of the car.

"Where are you folks going?"

"Who? Us?" said the old man.

"Yes. Where to?"

"Well," stuttered the wife, "we have tickets for a two p.m. matinee at the..."

She pulled two frayed tickets from her purse.

"Broadhurst Theatre. It's on..."

She struggled to read the fine print.

"Forty-fourth," said Alex. "The Broadhurst is at forty-fourth and seventh."

He checked his watch—one-twenty-three.

"Here, take my limo. Spence will get you there with time to spare."

"But..."

"No charge."

"Oh, but sir, we..."

The woman's purse fell from her hands and spilled on the sidewalk. Her husband slowly knelt down to retrieve her belongings but Alex beat him to it.

"Please, let me," he said, a faint trace of a smile on his face as he remembered meeting Lisa in just this way less than two hours earlier. Mixed in with the mints, lipsticks, compacts and green stamps, was a dog-eared paperback copy of "A Ounce of Dignity" an historical novel set in the McCarthy era by one Alexander Thorndyke.