Tornado 1

I didn't understand it, and it troubled me no end.

Melinda Hunter was the Purchasing Department joke. The other men could hardly resist snickering and lewd comments as she passed by. She'd earned them with her behavior at after-hours watering holes and departmental parties.

On the surface, Mel was a major winner: fresh-faced, bosomy yet slender, extroverted, and well supplied with intelligence and drive. She was always beautifully dressed: tailored blouses, knee-length skirts, hose and high heels.

Never

trousers or jeans. Always just the right number of accessories, and in the best of taste. She knew how to play the corporate game, too; at twenty-eight she already had upper management eating out of her hand. The smart money was on her becoming the director of the department when Josh Parnell finally found the grace to retire. All the other women hated her.

You had to know about her slutteries to appreciate the contradiction.

Major winner, yeah. Young, single, attractive, competent, energetic -- and cheap. Cheap by choice.

Mel's trademark sex act had gained her a weird moniker: "Tornado." Apparently "Hoover" was considered too cliched, or perhaps deemed inappropriate because she preferred to stand up. I couldn't help but wonder if she knew about it...or cared.

I stayed well clear of her. As attractive as she was, I had no intention of becoming part of her stable. Cheap and easy have never done a thing for me.

After she'd been a bare two years in the department, I learned that I was the only man there who hadn't sampled her favors. That made me one of the office jokes, as well. I didn't let it bother me.

But it bothered Melinda.

***

A typical office has a few spots in which, given time and determination, you can corner anyone: the coffee service, the water cooler, the copier, the fax machine, and the departmental secretary's station. If you're aware that you're being stalked, those are places to avoid. Use them after hours if you can. If you can't wait that long, "case the joint" before approaching, do your work, and get back to your desk. Never linger.

Of course, a determined stalker will notice. A determined stalker will watch your movements, note patterns, and devise a counter-tactic. You must be ready for the inevitable.

My Achilles heel was the fax. Quite a number of our suppliers are averse to doing business over the Internet. They have their reasons, and I'm required to respect them. Anyway, fax is reliable and secure. But damned few offices have more than one, and I wasn't about to pay for fax service out of my own pocket just to avoid using ours.

I tried to schedule my faxing toward the end of the day, when everyone else's mind is on getting out and home. Occasionally it wasn't possible to wait that long. On one such occasion, I'd just gotten my order form into the hopper when I felt a slim hand land softly on my shoulder.

I turned. It was Mel, of course. Elegantly dressed as always, and with her characteristic naughty smile. There was no document in her hands.

"How are you, Ryan?"

I smiled formally. "Fine, thanks." I started to turn back toward the machine, but she halted me.

"A few of us have plans to gather at the Black Grape after work. I hear Todd and Jeanne Iverson will be there, too. Have you ever met them?"

I swallowed. Her right hand was still on my shoulder. "Once, when I joined the company."

Her smile widened. "It would be an opportunity to deepen your acquaintance with them." Her left hand rose to land on my other shoulder. "With me, too."

I winced. Her smile gave way to a look of concern.

"Something wrong?"

I glanced pointedly over her head, shouted, "Josh, I need to speak with you," and pushed past her, leaving my order form in the machine and unfaxed.

***

I don't drink much, and seldom when I'm out. These days the cops are harder on drunk drivers than they are on serial killers. But that night I needed a couple, and it felt wrong to go home to do it.

I went to Team Spirits, a bar on the opposite side of town, to minimize the chance of running into anyone else I knew. There were plenty of available booths; I picked up a beer from the bar and slid into one. The bartendress frowned at me, as I was alone and there was no one else at the bar. I'm not solitary most of the time, but that night what I had on my mind wouldn't support a conversation. I wasn't looking to drown my sorrows; I just wanted to take them out for a quick wade in the shallows.

But Murphy's Law was on the lookout for me. Apparently I'd dodged the Flying Purple Shaft too often recently, and it had marked me for special attention. I wasn't a third of the way through that beer when the bartendress slid into the seat across from me and leaned toward me.

"Feeling a little low?"

I shook my head. "Just dampening a few scattered thoughts. You know how it is."

She chuckled. "Don't I just." She looked me over swiftly and held out a hand. "I'm Nancy."

I shook it quickly. "Ryan."

"Pleased to meet you, Ryan. From the look on your face I figured you could use a little company." A pause. "I know I could."

I said nothing. That might have been the worst thing I could have done. Her face darkened at once.

"What's wrong with that, Bubba?" She looked down at herself. "Not good enough to sit with you?"

I shook my head. "Come on, you should know better. You're young and pretty and friendly. I'm flattered that you came back here. I'm just not fit company tonight. If I were in a better mood..." I let the thought trail off.

A look of understanding lit in her eyes. "Girl troubles, hon?"

"You could say that."

"I'm a girl," she said. "Nothing's better for girl troubles than another girl. That's what my other customers tell me, anyway. And I own this joint. Want me to lock the door?" She glanced back at her bar. "Doesn't look like there'll be much trade for a while, anyway."

I've never claimed to understand the female mind, but these past few years the Plutonians I'd gotten used to seem to have been replaced by demons from another dimension. Her offer, which obviously implied quite a bit more than conversation, left me too flabbergasted to compose a coherent reply.

The door opened, and high heels clicked smartly down the aisle.

"Excuse me," a soft alto voice said, "I believe this seat is taken."

Nancy looked up in irritation. "Bet your ass, bitch. Find another."

A hand shot out, took Nancy by the ear and tugged sharply. She screamed and raised her hands to attack, but Mel caught Nancy's wrists, whirled her around, and twisted her arms into a neat cross-Nelson.

"Back off, babe." Mel's smile was feral, the rictus of the predator in the instant before the pounce. "He's mine."

***

"Well, that was something new."

"What?" Mel twisted around in the passenger seat to face me. "You've never seen two women fight over a man before? Believe me, it happens all the time."

"Around you, maybe."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Means what it says. I've never seen it before. So what brings you all the way out here?"

"You do."

"Hm?"

"I followed you, Ryan. Isn't that just a wee bit obvious?"

"But why?"

"Because I have to know."

"Why I avoid you, you mean?"

"Well, why? What's wrong with me?"

I laughed. "That's twice in fifteen minutes a beautiful woman has asked me that. What is it with you, anyway? Why does something have to be 'wrong with you' for me not to want to become part of your harem, Tornado?"

Mel paled and her mouth dropped open. "What did you call me?"

"What every other man in the office calls you. Didn't you

know?

"

She began to tremble. Not little tremors, like ordinary nerves or someone who's having a hard time holding still, but real, violent quakes that looked powerful enough to shake her apart.

I reflexively put a hand to her shoulder. As I touched her, willingly for the first time, two things happened.

She burst into tears.

My heart broke.

***

"Forgive me?"

Mel nodded. "I'd heard the word used in the office. I just didn't know it referred to me." She raised a tear-streaked face. "Because of what I --"

"I assume so," I said quickly. "No need to discuss it in the parking lot of a sleazy bar."

She nodded and leaned into me, heedless of the gearshift digging into her thigh. I laid an arm tentatively around her shoulders. She was still quivering slightly.

I struggled with my own contradictions. I'm no prude. I enjoy sex as much as the next man. But I have an aversion to "going-nowhere" sex. Quickies. One-night stands with nothing exchanged but semen, saliva, and sweat. I want things to last. I want to build things that will last.

"Mel," I murmured, "have you had dinner?"

She shook her head.

"Would you like some?"

She looked up. "Sure. Where to?" She reached into her purse to grope for her keys. I laid a hand on hers, and she stopped.

"I'll drive."

***

Mel gave me a speculative look as we pulled into my driveway, but she held her tongue and followed me inside. I gave silent thanks that my cleaning lady had been there earlier that day.

I gestured her toward my living-room sofa. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll be back in a moment." She nodded and seated herself, smoothing her skirt carefully beneath her.

The liquor cabinet held a single unopened bottle of Gewurtztraminer. It would have to do. I uncorked it, poured two glasses, and brought them out to her. She accepted one with a nod and a murmur of thanks. We clinked and sipped.

"Are you averse to cheddar omelets and English muffins for dinner?" I said. "It's all I have the fixings for."

She smiled wanly. "The bachelor life. I know it well. No, that will be fine. I'd rather we stayed here anyway, even with no food at all."

I saluted her with my glass, rose, and went to the kitchen to fix dinner. As I worked, I heard movement in the dining room behind me, drawers opening, cloth flapping, and glassware clinking. Twenty minutes later I and my electric frying pan discovered that Mel had set the table, and more.

She had explored my sideboard thoroughly. She'd covered my old rock-maple table with my Irish linen tablecloth. She'd deployed my best china, beautifully delicate pieces over seventy years old, and the silverware I'd inherited from my paternal grandmother. She'd fitted slender white tapers into the candleholders and lit them, bathing the room in the inimitable glow that bespeaks an important intimate encounter. Every item on the table was a family heirloom I'd never before found an occasion to use.

She stood waiting by the table, hands folded before her.

"Sorry I couldn't invent a centerpiece," she said. "You don't have any flowers lying around."

I swallowed. "I could send out."

She giggled. "The omelets would get cold."

I glanced down at the omelets. "They might die of embarrassment anyway."

Another giggle. "Sit down, Ryan."

We did. I served us and poured more Gewurtztraminer.

About three bites in, Mel said, "You have to watch out for 'special occasion' syndrome. Use your good stuff. Every day above ground is a special occasion."

I nodded, reached for my English muffin, and stopped. "That's part of why I never understood."

Her brow furrowed. In the candlelight her eyes were enormous.

"Why you...you know."

"Oh." She dropped her gaze to her plate.

"Look," I said, suddenly exasperated, "I'm not one of the everyone-is-special types. That's a lot of crap, always has been and always will be. There are a lot of people whose sole function in life is to keep their clothes filled. I don't trouble myself about them, and I'm sure they don't trouble themselves about me. But you

are

special." Mel looked up, plainly astonished. "You have every asset a woman could possibly want. I've been looking for exactly what and who you are all my adult life."

The cords of my neck had tautened and my hands had balled into fists.

"Ryan," she whispered, "that's how I feel about you."

There are no words in the dictionary adequate to how I felt upon hearing that. "Stunned" doesn't come close. "Devastated" is too modest.

"Then why have you cheapened it night after night by degrading yourself with anyone who wants his ashes hauled?" My voice had risen without my willing it. "Then you try to drag

me

into the same pigsty. How the hell am I supposed to feel about that?"

Animation flooded into her face. "That's not why I approached you. I meant what I said about wanting to get to know you better. I've waited for an opportunity for nearly two years, and you've been so elusive I had to jump at today's chance. I thought I might never get another one."

A long moment of silence passed between us.

"Are you serious?" I said.

She nodded.

"Then why...why all the others?"

"Ryan," she said wearily, "I just suck them off. I don't fuck them. Well, not often, anyway." She noticed my grimace. "What's wrong?"

I held up a hand and looked aside. I have a thing about gutter language, but I wasn't about to reveal that particular prissiness at the moment. Not when even the broadcast radio and television stations no longer try to repress it.

Mel rose, circled the table, and draped her arms around my shoulders from behind. I sat unmoving.

"Are you still hungry?" she murmured.

I looked up. "Not particularly."

She put one hand to the underside of my chin. "Then come with me."

***

Mel found my bedroom without having to ask the way and pulled me in behind her. It's not much -- no two pieces match -- but I try to keep it neat. She sat on the edge of my bed, gestured to me to join her, and took my hand again.

"I think you can guess why we're here," she said.

I nodded. "I'm not that slow. But I do have a question first."

"Which is?"

"Why all the others? Whoever and whenever and whatever, what did you get out of it?"

She shrugged. "It was just to break the isolation. Everyone's always looked at me...well, pretty much the way you did just before. Special. A world-beater. Too good for mortal man. Frightening. It gets lonely up on a pedestal, Ryan. I wanted to come down. So I thought about what would most likely get me down, and I did it." She scowled. "I've never really enjoyed it much. Not that I expected to."

"Would you like to know why?" I said.

She nodded, eyes wary.

"Because you are special, and you know it. You can't just throw yourself at the mediocre majority and expect to get anything out of it. The mediocre majority has nothing to offer you. It can take what you offer, but it can never pay you back in any adequate way. Would you like to know what the chief pleasure you offered all those other men really was?"

She said nothing.

"The satisfaction from saying to themselves that they'd lowered you beneath them. Instead of kinking their necks looking up at you, now they could look down, and maybe spit."

Another nod. "I think I knew that. I just...oh, never mind." She turned and wrapped her arms around me. I reciprocated. "Shall we make love?" she said.

"We shall."

We undressed together, and presently stood nude in the evening dimness. Her body was smooth and perfect, a symphony of luscious curves and flawless skin.

She started toward me, and I held up a hand. "Are you on the pill?"

She shook her head. "No, I use a diaphragm."

"Are you wearing it now?"

"Yes."

"Take it out."

"But --"

"Do it."

She complied and handed it to me. I gave it a cursory glance and laid it aside.

"This is not a fling for me, Mel," I said. "I'm done with flings and holding actions. This is as serious as it gets. I love you. I want you for my wife and the mother of my children. If you feel the same, we start here and now, no holding back, no protection against one another, and no regrets no matter what should happen. Or we don't start at all."

"What if I can't have children?" she whispered.

"Would that oppress you terribly?"

"...no..."

"Then we'll leave that up to God. Will you have me for your husband? To love, cherish, and obey, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do us part?"

She frowned. "Obey?"

"Just so. A household can have only one head. I will be that head. If not with you, then eventually with someone else. Those are my terms. Do you accept them?"

About ten thousand years later she whispered, "I do."

I took her in my arms, and we kissed for the first time.

Her lips were soft, her mouth sweet. The cushiony pleasure of holding her against me and kissing her was beyond anything I'd known. She moaned into my mouth and pressed herself firmly against me. My hands slid down her back and settled upon her rump, and I lifted her into the air.

She squealed and pulled back to look into my eyes as I impaled her upon me.

"No foreplay?"

I grinned. "Foreplay, afterplay, humbug! We'll have duringplay. Betweenplay. All-the-while-play. And play we will, my love. Join in as the spirit moves you."

I lowered her onto the bed, disengaging reluctantly. My hands and lips began a slow, worshipful exploration of her body. Full, ripe breasts, milky-pink, with turgid nipples and skin soft as rose petals. A beautifully tapered rib cage covered with the same satiny skin, but with surprising muscle beneath. A narrow waist and a perfect jewel of a navel. Hips of a goddess of fecundity, and perfect legs that promised an inescapable embrace.

I stroked her from head to toe, over and over, lingering over her nipples and her mound. She moaned and undulated in time to my caresses, in the erotic rhythm of a temple dancer.

"Ryan," she gasped, "I want you back inside me."

"All in good time," I said, parting her labia and taking her clitoris between my lips.

She squealed and shuddered as the first of her orgasms swept over her. I paused to let it pass, then resumed my nibbling. Another climax was upon her at once, and another after that. Within minutes she was panting raggedly, near to exhaustion from the tidal waves of tension and release. I rose and peered down at her through the gloom.

"What was it you said you wanted just before?"

"Come back down here, damn it!"

So I did, and she welcomed me home.

***

We were unable to keep our hands off one another throughout the night. It was a struggle to rise and part the morning after, though we knew it would be a brief parting.

The office was as it usually is. I walked in at the usual time, drew a cup of coffee from the communal urn, and set to my work as if it were any ordinary Thursday. But it would not be ordinary for long.

On my way to the copier I passed several other coworkers, and crossed paths with Mel on her way to wherever. We couldn't resist a brushing caress as we passed one another. I held my giggle back; she couldn't quite restrain hers.

Hal Larson grabbed me by the arm as I returned to my desk. "So it's true, then?"

"Hm? What's true?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't quite believe it, but my wife swore on a Bible that she'd seen you and Tornado out together. Said you looked like an item --"

I didn't let him get another word out. My right fist snapped out and caught him on the point of his chin, a perfect knockout punch. His eyes rolled up and he started to crumple. I caught him under the arms and dragged him to the departmental secretary's station, shouting

"Everyone in Purchasing, up to the front desk, right now!"

I found a crowd of baffled purchasing agents there. What they thought of me dragging Larson's limp carcass will have to go unrecorded. I let him slump to the carpet, beckoned Mel out of the crowd to my side, and took her hand.

"I have a couple of announcements. First, the lady whom you've known these past two years as Melinda Hunter is now Mrs. Ryan Cunningham." I swept the gathering with my eyes. "I trust you will join me in celebrating our choice of one another."