"Dammit," I growled as I checked the time on my phone. "Where are you?" I stood in the entryway of the Milwaukee museum, feeling as out of place as a dildo in Disneyland.
The interior of the cavernous building looked like the starkly bleached white skeleton of the massive beast it appeared to be from the outside, all arched supports and ribs and supports. Glass was set between almost every architectural element, giving a great view of the sky or the grounds, depending on where one looked, not that there was much to look at at four thirty in the afternoon the sky was dark gray sliding towards black and the grounds were a contrasting white, more snow falling like finely sifted flour. The building has been decorated for Christmas, and it was somehow elegantly overcrowded with Christmas trees, all wrapped with red ribbon and white lights.
It looked marvelously elegant. Dressed in jeans and an army jacket, I looked like a bum as I waited for Jessie to arrive.
I'd Skype'd her during the week, telling her that I wanted to come to her hometown of Milwaukee to catch an art exhibit and she was welcome to join me if she wanted.
"You just want to have more fantastic sex," she said, the grainy video on my convertible showing her pouting despite the mirth in her voice.
"I just had a weekend-long threesome, I'm tuckered out. I'd just like to hang out and see the city."
"But what if I just want to have more fantastic sex?" Jessie stuck her lower lip out at me.
"I'm sure we could find someone for you. I'm probably going to be spending the whole weekend in the museum." I wasn't, but playing hard to get never hurt.
We'd set the time and day, and I'd driven the six hours from Minneapolis this morning, checking into a very hip hotel downtown, dropping my car in their parking ramp, and then walking the short distance to the museum with minutes to spare.
Jessie was a few minutes late, and given the opulence and elegance of my surroundings, I was getting impatient to stop darkening the lobby with my scruffy self. Even the attendants were looking at me like I didn't belong.
Or maybe I just wanted to get moving because I felt nervous.
The last time I'd met this girl, I'd fucked her in the ass. That had been our sole interaction outside of video chats - which were themselves usually sexual - and I worried that neither one of us would like the other outside of mutual carnal interests.
And then a gust of frigid air blew in as the glass doors open and a a slim figure bundled in black walked in, huddled into itself against the cold.
"Jessie?"
The figure turned, pulling off gloves, and a smile split Jessie's pale face. She stepped up to me and for a brief moment I was unsure of how to greet her, given the intensity of the intimacy wed experienced briefly. Shake her hand? Hug her? Kiss her hello? I went for the hug, lifting her up slightly, putting her back down, and stepping back to look her over.
Now that we weren't overwhelmed by a wave of sexual frenzy, or talking via grainy camera and screen connections, she looked slightly different. Black jeans were tucked into well-worn black leather boots, a far cry from the supple brown designer boots that Sienna wore, these were weather and location appropriate. Underneath a snow-dusted, knee-length, black, wool coat she wore a heavy black military sweater that almost completely hid the slight swells of what I remembered were small breasts. Her face, now un-made-up, was just as pale, but now I could see her cheeks and nose were lightly spattered with freckles. Her gray eyes were wide-set, and the muscle and bone definition in her cheeks and jawline was strong.
Her smile was odd though, her small mouth pulling back wide to show her incisors. I remembered in a flash watching those lips twist into a feral intelligent smirk, her eyebrows arching up towards a short mop of black hair now devoid of any brilliant coloring.
"You look great," I said.
She pulled off heavy hiking gloves and stuffed them in her pockets. "A lot different than the last time we met, I bet."
There was that girlish voice, not quite so exaggerated as before, but still striking. I could hear in it the squeals and gasps of pain and pleasure that I'd inflicted.
"A bit."
I paid for our tickets and then we wandered left down the massive white wing of the museum. The display was landscapes, detailed, whimsical, not quite Painter-Of-Light, not so mall-kiosk, but still idyllic. Our boots tracked slush over the blond wood floor, and outside the windows, streetlights halo'd acidic orange onto snowbanks and the falling fluff.
"How was your day?" I asked as we examined a canvas of a red bird perched on a fir.
Jessie sighed. "Long. Frenetic. How was yours?"
"I don't like driving that far in one stretch, but it was worth it."
There was that smirk again.
"What do you do for a living?"
Another sigh and she ran her hands through her hair like she wanted to pull it out. "Part time web designer slash marketing lead for a tech startup, full time designer for a clothing startup. Today I was working at the clothing job. How about you?"
"Boring life. Accounting degree, worked in a bank for a while, now I've got a cushy gig teaching accounting to college students and hot blondes throw themselves at me."
"Oh yeah, how did that go?"
We moved down the wing, looking at more summer paintings. Quite the dichotomy, summer on one wall, winter behind glass on another. "The three of us spent a very nice weekend in Minneapolis last weekend, and I think she's spending the weekend with my neighbor starting tomorrow."
Jessie high fived me. "Nice."
"How about you? Attend any fun parties lately, sit on stockroom shelves and scare the crap out of passerbys?"
She shook her head. "Been working a lot. I only go when my friend invites me, and she's been busy too."
"Awww... That's sad. You should be putting those skills to good use." I elbowed her playfully and she gave it right back.
"I haven't been totally alone or unsatisfied in the last month," she said salaciously.
I held up my hand for a high five. "Nice."
We kept walking, commenting on the art, the weather, my excruciatingly long drive, and her frantically busy day trying to prototype sketches with less than adequate materials in time for the marketing people to get them to a meeting.
She was funny. Obviously hard working, obviously educated, and far more self aware than a lot of people. I'd grasped a uniqueness about her back in the warehouse, but today those small breasts weren't on display with a corset, and I wasn't riding high on lust and an aggressive need to dominate.
I genuinely enjoyed her company.
Our tour of the display took us down one side of the museum wing, around a corner, and down the other side. At this time of day, and in this weather, the museum was mostly deserted. We'd passed only two art students sitting on a bench attempting to duplicate with Sharpies on cardboard what had been done with paint on canvas. As we rounded the corner, Jessie elbowed me in the side. "C'mon," she said in a hushed tone. "Over here."
The elbow in my side propelled me towards a partly open supply closer, mop and bucket just visible in the shadowed interior.
"I don't think there's anything in there," I said with a grin.
"Oh, I think there's something in there you'll like..." Jessie very deliberately licked her lips.
"Can I take a raincheck?"
She cocked her head, put her hands on her hips. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. I may be a walking hard-on, but I'm a self-aware walking hard-on. One of reasons I'm here is to prove to myself I can spend time with a woman without jumping into bed with her."
