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Melissa glanced down to check the map on her phone. The blue dot showed she was still on the correct road, just as it had when she last looked at it less than a minute ago. She chided herself to relax and enjoy the drive.
The sun flickered through the deep green trees lining the street. The warm fragrance of early summer rushed in through her open window. It was a beautiful day, so she hardly minded not having the money to fix her air conditioning.
Ever since Erik's call two days ago, she had been distracted and nervous, trying to figure out how she wanted their date to go. Except it wasn't a 'date,' she reminded herself. She had insisted on something neutral, something during the day, simply because she didn't trust herself alone with him at night. She didn't want to have their first date turn into one wild night of sex and then have him disappear forever the next day.
They had agreed on a walk along a creek in a park near his house. She had worn a one-piece bathing suit under her jeans and shirt, just to slow things down if she somehow did wind up with her pants down around her ankles.
She told herself that choosing to wear a one piece bathing suit didn't mean that she lacked trust in her resolve, but the scene in the seminar room kept playing back in her mind. Once her post-orgasmic bliss had faded, she had been incredibly embarrassed that she actually had an orgasm with someone she just met, while they were both still fully clothed. Fortunately, he hadn't said anything about it on the phone.
She checked her map again. The blue dot was coming up on his house. The properties she was driving past were at least several acres each, with big houses set well back among large trees. Some houses, she couldn't even see from the road. "Definitely old money territory," she muttered to herself. "Sure, I'll fit in here, just like the hired help."
Up ahead, she spotted a mailbox with his house number on it. Slowing down, she turned into his driveway. She couldn't see a house. The driveway disappeared into the woods.
She slowed her car to a crawl, pondering the wisdom of continuing. She hadn't told anyone where she was going. She was too embarrassed to be dating a VIP donor. Trying to break the tension that had suddenly gripped her, she joked to herself, "But it's not a date."
She snorted at her sudden fears. "Come on. He's a big deal muckity-muck. It's not like he's going to tie me up and rape me." She found her thoughts slipping into a fantasy of that image for a moment and was annoyed to feel her sex clench tight in pleasure. She was always embarrassed by how much rape fantasies turned her on.
As her thoughts had wandered, her car was still slowly drifting forward. She snapped her attention back to the driveway and sped up. "Yeah, no sex. That's why I've got a bathing suit underneath my hiking clothes, and it ain't coming off. Hear that Mr. Rich Guy? I'm a good little Catholic girl... well, I was... once... long ago... and it still ain't coming off." She laughed at her bravado, knowing her horrible track record with keeping those sorts of promises.
Around the bend, the house appeared. Getting closer, she could see it was actually a gathering of low structures, spread out along the brow of a hill, overlooking a meadow and stream. The buildings all seemed to be made of stone and weathered wood, with slate roofs. It reminded her of something that might have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The driveway ended in a courtyard. The main house was on the downslope side of the courtyard. It looked as though the front door of the main house was on what must be the upper floor. The rest of the large building flowed down the slope, with its broad roof sweeping toward the meadow. On the other side of the courtyard was a wood and stone retaining wall. The top of the hill rose up behind the wall. At the far end of the courtyard, a pathway curved around the brow of the hill, running between several smaller wood and stone buildings.
She parked her car and looked around, not sure if she should get out. Behind her, she heard a screen door screech open, then bang shut. Looking back, she saw Erik coming out of the main house. He was dressed in blue jeans that clung to his form, with a simple white button-down shirt and rolled-up sleeves. His shirt had a rumpled look of a cotton-linen blend that hadn't been ironed. He was wearing hiking boots that had clearly seen plenty of use.
He waved to her, "Welcome!" She got out as he walked toward her, saying, "I see you found the place. It's great to see you again." He casually halted several steps away, which removed, she realized, any question of whether he would shake her hand or kiss her. In all her obsessing about how this 'not-a-date' would go, she hadn't even considered how he would greet her. She tried to tell herself that she felt relief, not disappointment, that he hadn't greeted her with a kiss.
"Great to see you again too. You've got a really beautiful place."
"Thanks. Well, come on in. We can grab some water and head out towards the creek."
"Ah, okay."
She followed him toward the front door. He paused so she could catch up and they could walk together. Erik opened the screen door, gesturing her in. The inside of the house looked cool and dim.
Melissa stepped inside, surprised to see that most of the house was one large open space, which stepped down the slope in several levels. They were standing on the highest level. A long sloping ceiling stretched down across a large expanse of space spreading out below. Half a level down, in front of her, was a large country kitchen, with a big dining table off to the right. Another half-level below that was a living area. The far wall of the living area was lined with sliding glass doors, leading out onto a terrace. Beyond that, the slope continued down across the meadow to the creek. On the far side of the creek, a wooded slope rose beyond the view of the windows from where she stood. Through a small eyebrow window at her level, she could glimpse far off trees and blue sky.
"Erik, this is gorgeous!"
"Thanks. It's always wonderful to come back here, especially when I've been living in some dreary rental apartment on an assignment." He smiled at a memory and said, "You should see this place in the snow."
She nodded, seeing a large stone fireplace on the left side of the living area and imaging lying intertwined with him on the thick rug that lay in front of it, illuminated by a glowing fire while a winter storm howled outside. She quickly shook away the image and asked, "But how do you take care of all this, if you're away for months at a time?"
"There's a wonderful couple who lives in one of the guesthouses. They take care of almost everything around here. Mrs. Grady even cooks for me sometimes, when I'm around, and I'm too busy to cook for myself. She's quite good. She'd spoil me rotten if I let her."
"You call her 'Mrs. Grady'?"
"Well, she's British. It just seemed like the thing to do. I admit that I call her husband Chuck, but he's an American."
She cocked her head at him, still puzzled.
"Oh, she's sweet enough. Very kind, really. It's just that she has that gray-haired British sense of reserve. She first introduced herself to me as Mrs. Grady. It seemed wrong to call her anything else. Thankfully, she doesn't call me 'young Master Erik.' That would be embarrassing. Anyway, let me grab some water and then we can head out. Do you want me to bring along any snack bars?" He started down a half flight of stairs into the kitchen.
"Ah, no. I just ate. Water will be fine." She looked around as she walked to the steps. To her right was a study lined with bookshelves, which shared the top level with the entry. Erik had set the study up as a working office for himself.
In the kitchen, Erik opened up a black anodized aluminum refrigerator door and pulled out a small CamelBak day pack. Slinging it over one shoulder, he joined Melissa to head down the next half flights of steps to the living area. She noted the comfortable overstuffed leather couches and chairs as they passed through and out onto the terrace. Erik gestured down to the creek, "Across the stream is state park land. Upstream, it's parkland on both sides. They allow hunting in the fall. The woods are crawling with hunters for a few weeks. Other than that, though, it's pretty quiet. Well, except for daisies running riot."
Melissa looked at him puzzled again.
"Sorry, just a bit of song lyric I've always liked." As they walked to the steps down to the meadow, he started singing in a soft baritone.
By the time he finished singing, they were down to the creek. He gestured upstream, and they walked together. Melissa said, "That was really lovely. I think my dad sometimes used to listen to that song. He likes jazz."
"Yeah, me too. The song's an old show tune, though. I just like the jazz version of it. So what does your dad do?"
"He's got a heating and air conditioning business. He does pretty well at it. He never went to college but sent all of us through. He's even helping out with my grad school, although grant money covers a lot, plus I worked for a couple of years before going back."
"Have you got a lot of brothers and sisters?"
"Two older, one younger. Joe, Liam, me, and Sean."
"An' I'm guessing that's it's an Irish Catholic lot," he intoned with a soft Irish lilt.
"Aye now, from County Kildare." She laughed, "Actually, both sides of my family have been in the States for a couple of generations, so I'm not entirely sure where we all are from. Mostly Brooklyn and St. Louis.
"How about you?"
He looked pensive for a minute before answering. "My mom was first-generation Ukrainian Jewish. Her parents were smuggled out just before the Second World War. My dad was a Mayflower blue blood mutt."
She asked, "Was?"
"Yeah, they both died in a car accident when I was young. I lived with my dad's parents, but my uncle, my mom's brother, really raised me."
He saw the curiosity in her face and continued, "My grandparents had a big house and servants, but my grandparents weren't around much. Nearly every day, my uncle would come over and eat dinner with me in the kitchen. We'd do homework together. I spent a lot of my weekends with him too. He's a college professor."
