Come Up Ch 04

Before he changes jobs he asks me to do lunch with him. The Ethiopian Boys story is already in the can and we aren't collaborating on anything more.

"Sounds like a date," I say accusingly, trying to remind him of the deal.

"Not a date...just lunch," he says. "You gotta eat, right?"

I figure we'll go to the pub just down the street, something quick like everyone does at lunch. As we head out the front door he turns the other way. No, a restaurant in Yorkville, an isolated, reserved table, expensive. Trouble, I think.

He takes a sip of water and says, "You know, you're a great journalist..."

"Thanks, you too."

...but I don't know anything else about you."

What else? Personal questions now? My guard goes up. I have to get this off that track and back where it belongs.

"The hell you don't...You've seen me naked!..." I laugh, "...and I swallow, not a spitter." And that's all you're going to know, I think but don't say.

He laughs, but I realize I haven't yet closed things off.

"Who spits at the office? Miriam? Rose? Hey, did you hear about Rose?"

"Uh-huh, lucky for her, but really, I don't know anything about you," he says getting back.

He won't let it go. I feel cornered and uncomfortable. He starts with questions about when I worked out west. Then it's onto school, other jobs I've had. There's one he can't know about, nobody can know about that. I try to deflect him, try to get him talking about himself instead. It should be easy. He's self-centred, egocentric. But he's also a pro, good at interviewing. He fences me in, leaves me just one way out. I can stand up and leave, storm out, piss him off.

We had a deal, just fucking, nothing more, and he's breaking it. I can get angry, can leave the restaurant, but then what happens? I'll seem him every day at work. What happens to our deal, the fucking? I totter, go back and forth in my mind.

I'm folding my napkin to leave.

"No," he says. "Don't go."

"We had a deal."

I stay. I'd rather talk about something else, the work, the stories, the angles. He starts to talk about himself. I finish my meal.

~

He calls me in the morning. Even though I'm not busy I don't pick up. Staring at my phone as if his face will come on the screen, I suddenly feel confused. Why am I not picking up? Is it dread I am feeling? I don't think so, but wait. If it isn't dread, is it fear, fear of what this man is doing to me? Inside me the lid comes off. The fear swells inside of me like an ocean wave. I realize that I can't stop with him. It is my inability to control it anymore. This is too powerful, too powerful.

Alone in my office panicking, I suddenly realize I am hunched over, clutching my arms around myself, gripping the phone as if to crush it. My eyes clench shut to keep back tears.

Him again. A text this time.

"Hard and fast, or tender and slow?"

It throws me off balance even more. I don't understand it. Chaos ricochets in my head. I need to calm down. I start to count to ten and try to breathe slowly, deeply. It starts to work, but what am I going to do now? Reply to his text or ignore it? I think for a moment, calm, calm.

"What is that? E-foreplay?" I text, making light of it, trying to mock him.

Seconds later, he comes back. He isn't going to drop it, not this either. I think about the restaurant.

"Serious. Hard and fast, or tender and slow?"

We never talk about it. Come up, I say and he comes. It's never planned, never negotiated and we never say what we like. We just do it, no thinking, no considering, always selfish and intense but strangely, amazingly mutual at the same time. It's so unbelievably good.

Why now, I wonder. Why like this? But I can imagine him holding his phone, calm and confident, toying with me, controlling the puppet's strings. I hate to think that he is so in control. I search my mind for an answer different from, "Fuck right off." I key it in.

"If first the one, then surely the other will follow." Mockingly heavy, falsely wise, perfectly pedantic. Also stupid, I think, but I've already sent it.

Seconds later he comes back with the last word.

"We will put that to the test tonight." He has taken me seriously. Trouble.

~

And so tonight it is not spontaneous. It was planned, the worst thing for my fixation. Throughout the day I have struggled to be honest with myself through my anger. The truth, the frightening truth is that I can't wait.

It's usually once or twice a week. We have fucked once already this week, and three times last week, definitely more than it was before. I don't know how many since he left this station for the other, or since we started. But tonight time ticks by too slowly. We'll put that to the test tonight, he had said

His text comes at last. He is not coming up. He wants me to come down to his place. Moments later I am alone, riding the elevator down to his place. I find myself anticipating what is waiting for me and my pulse quickens. The bell rings softly and the elevator gently slows. Why do these doors take so long to open. I'm ready now. I want the fucking doors to be out of my way.

When his apartment door opens and I first glimpse him he has me overwhelmed again. I hate that, I hate that, but I can't wait to have him. I step up to him quickly with my arms ready to clasp around him, my lips ready to crash together with his. All I want is to envelope my soft pussy around his hardness, to have him fill me up and pin me down with his cock.

But he stops me, strong hands on my shoulders holding me back and away? What is this? What is this?

"No. Different tonight." I am shocked, confused, but curious too, intrigued. Again my mind floods with the futures. Fetish? Bondage? Is there someone else here? But I've forgotten the message from this morning. Hard and fast? Not tonight apparently. Slow and tender.

He takes my hand in his. He leads the way through his living room, into the hallway, into the bedroom and from there into the bathroom. He lets go of my hand with a small smile, but it's not a sneering smile, not a teasing or wicked smile. Not a TV smile, not simply pasted on his face.

He lights candles and turns off the lights. The shower is big, built for two. Its glass is clear. The walls and floor are stone, rough, not polished. There are plants everywhere, a rainforest, dark and humid. It feels as if we're outdoors, as if anyone could be out there and see us. It arouses me.

He presses the buttons on the wall to set the water running. I watch as the shower heads begin to rain, the lowest ones first, then the next, then the next. The spray is not forceful, not pressurized. It is full, like natural rain.

He turns to me and loosens his tie. He is undressing himself and I take it that I am to undress too. We don't hurry. We don't touch. We don't stare. As I remove my clothing I fold each item neatly and place it on the vanity counter. He does the same, taking care of our clothes. Are we to take care of each other in the same way?

When we're naked he opens the shower's tempered glass door, takes my hand and ushers me in. He follows me, closes the door and guides me by my shoulders under the hot stream. The water flows over my back and down my body. It soothes me, takes away the urgency and the anxiousness.

It begins like a ceremony. He worships my body with his soapy hands. They roam everywhere, a light tracing fingertip, a full palm and sometimes a firm squeeze. He knows my body and adores it. But more than that, it is as if he knows the flow of my arousal, as if he reveals my own pleasure to me, when I crave a certain touch, where to touch, when to touch, when to move on.

It is a standing massage. He smoothes over my muscles, sliding his hands through the soapy froth. He visits everywhere on my body, touching me there, kissing me there. He stands behind me and I feel his cock sliding against my lower back. His hands lift my breasts, my nipples gently tugged between his fingers until I feel the beautiful tension, tension in my pussy.

He comes closer and holds me, his left arm around my chest and I melt into to him, leaning back. My head lolls against his neck and I feel his other hand move down, down toward my pussy where I want his touch, where I need his touch.

But he knows better than to satisfy my need right away. His palm slides over my stomach, lower, below my navel and there it stops, as if to comfort my womb. I feel the warmth of his palm over the most feminine part of me, the centre of my sex, soothing it, rejoicing it. And then his other hand releases my chest and now it moves down, down, cupping my mound, his fingers are against my pussy lips, covering my pussy, guarding it, keeping it safe. His hand does not slide but it moves in small, slow circles, moving the skin around, gently smearing my flesh, my outer lips. It feels so good.

And I know he will not make me come. I know this is simply sensual touch, only that, with no goals or ends. It is just for basking in, an ocean of pleasure as I relinquish myself, as I lose myself in it. Minutes pass and the hot water trickles over my body.

~

We're in his bed done. We're on our backs covered up, separate, staring at the ceiling. We're still coming down from it, but we're done.

"That was amazing...the shower," I say still feeling what his cock has done do my pussy, warmed, wet, awash in soft pleasure. I roll toward him and take his soft cock in my hand just so I can hold it.

"You're amazing," I blurt out. Shit! It is a mistake. He will take it the wrong way. I'm talking about what he just did to me. Call it his moves, his ways or techniques. They're what is amazing. It's not about him. He, the person, is not, I say to myself, protecting myself. I can't let him, him become amazing. I've alarmed myself and suddenly the whole mood is gone.

It's not just me. I've shocked him too with my blunder. He's turned his head and looks into my eyes.

"Thanks, you too...you're amazing too," he says earnestly, or is it needily?

I have to make myself not take my hand off his cock as if in disgust. I don't know what to say. His eyes are still locked onto mine. I can't take it.

"Mmmmmm...," I moan and close my eyes. Shit! He really has fucked my brains out, I think. I wanted to break the talking off, to get away from where it was headed but I realize quickly that it's another mistake, the moaning. He'll like that, I think. He'll think I like him. My eyes are closed. I feel him turn over to face me. I blink open and see that he's propped his head up on his elbow.

The sex is over. He wants to talk.

"I still don't know much about you," he says. This again, like in the restaurant.

He wants more. My mind flashes back to our start, when more just meant more fucking. That's all I want. More fucking. I want this to go on and on. When I feel the need, I want to call him, to get him to come up, to do me, to fuck my brains out. Brains, not feelings.

"You already know where I live, work, what car I drive, where I'm ticklish and what I can do to you," I say, trying again to seal it off.

"Come on...you know what I mean," he responds.

"What good would it do to know more?" but it's another blurt, another mistake. What if he answers the question?

I jump in again to head him off.

"And what about our deal? We have a deal remember? And what you said? I remember. You said it. No, we're not? I know I'm not. We're not. That's it."

At least he didn't push back. I take my hand off his cock and roll away.

Time to leave.