Dinner with a Friend

This is a work of fiction. Names characters and incidents are a product of the author's fevered imagination and wet dreams and any resemblance to to actual persons, living or dead, or real events are purely coincidental.

He answered the door, and just stood there silently as she dripped over the threshold.

She gestured helplessly at the mangled skeleton of what had once been an umbrella. "It's pouring, and as soon as I got out of the car my umbrella died."

"Shall we have a funeral for it?" he finally said as he took it from her and carried it down the hall to the trash bin.

She followed him in. "Maybe later. Dinner smells great- I'm starving."

"Come on, I'll get you a towel."

"I'm soaked to the skin. Can I borrow some sweats?"

He took her to the bathroom and opened the linen closet, waving in the general direction of the towels before turning away and heading to the kitchen. "I must baste! I'll pass you the sweats in a sec."

She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror lit by a harsh fluorescent light. Guys never have flattering lighting in their bathrooms, she thought.

Hair a sodden helmet, mascara running. Well, she had pretty low expectations for the evening, so this was par for the course.

Peeling off her wet clothes she wrapped her hair up in a towel and dried off. At the bottom of the stack of pastel towels she saw a flash of color. Reaching in and lifting up the towels revealed a bright patterned sarong. Her friend Jennie had taught her how to tie one on that long weekend at Jon's cottage before the wedding. She had marveled at the tiny proportions of the pretty Australian's overnight bag. Somehow Jennie had worked one sarong, a bikini and a t.-shirt into an entire wardrobe. Well. It seemed as if the evening was not going to suck as much as she had expected.

He knocked on the bathroom door, and she opened it, enjoying the completely dumbstruck look on his face.

"I guess you won't be needing these," he said, quickly turning to put the sweats down on a chair in the hall. "Can I get you a glass of wine?"

"Sure." She nodded.

She followed him to the living room, where the bottle and glasses were set on the coffee table. He poured her a glass, handed it to her and then turned to pour himself one. She noticed that he was careful not to touch her when he passed her the glass. Boundaries. Ha. She was planning on breaking every single one tonight if she could. The sarong was definitely having an effect, she could tell. He kept trying not to look at her bare shoulders. She sat down on the sofa with her wine and carefully arranged the cloth so it wasn't too revealing. After all, she wasn't lying when she said she was hungry. The rest of her plan could wait until after dinner. Or at least after the main course. Dessert- that could wait. Until much, much later. She smiled to herself.

He sat down in a chair across from the sofa where she had settled.

She took a tiny sip of wine. She desperately wanted to guzzle down the whole glass and then another to allow the racing of her heart to slow. But she knew better. She was not going to let this go sideways. She wanted to stay in complete control.

"You look.... nice..." He couldn't say what he really wanted to. He couldn't tell her about the trip to Bali when he bought the sarong, how free he felt when he wore it on the beach, how after he came home he pushed it to the back of the closet after Laura took one look and declared it gaudy and ridiculous. He couldn't tell her how beautiful she was, how much he wished he could get up off this chair, take her hands and pull her up to stand in front of him so he could kiss her properly. He regretted the way he had kissed her the last time he saw her, at the end of the conference where they had met. He had been a mess, anticipating going home and saying his final goodbyes to Jonah.

He leaned back and took a mouthful of wine, letting it warm his mouth and feeling it hit the back of his throat, the tannins making his tongue simultaneously dry and wet. He felt like he was floating above the scene, watching her watching him. The slow sad notes of the song Lust started to play. Damn Tori Amos. Damn shuffle mode. He silently cursed Steve Jobs and his whole company. The whole industry. He hated his job as a software engineer. He wanted nothing more than to move to Tennessee and grow organic vegetables.

He definitely was not ready for another relationship. He didn't know why he had invited her for dinner at his place anyway. He could have suggested they meet in a nice safe restaurant close to the hotel she was staying in. Stupid competitiveness. He just had to prove that he was a good cook like he had told her. He knew she didn't really believe him, played along with him talking about recipes and cooking techniques. Especially after she told him about the beautiful artichokes she had seen at her co-op grocery and he admitted to never having cooked them .

Dinner! He suddenly jumped up.

"I think dinner is ready."

He got up and went into the kitchen. She stood, unsure whether to follow or sit at the table. She chose table. Sat and stared at the candle and flowers. A nice, romantic table arrangement for just dinner with a friend. Maybe she had missed something in his most recent letters, a thawing of the ice wall he had built to protect his trampled heart?

Flowers! She had completely forgotten. She had intended to bring a bouquet for him. He had mentioned how much he liked to have fresh flowers in the house, how he used to buy them every week for Laura and missed having them since he was alone. She had looked up the number of a local florist and called to inquire about getting flowers delivered to him. As usual she chickened out and didn't send any. He had been clear that he was only interested in her as a friend.

She wanted to respect that. Not get all stalkerish. No point in humiliating herself....again. There was still that restraining order....she pushed that out of her mind. Of course she had looked him up on Google after the conference. Need to be safe when you think you are falling for someone, need to find out as much as you can about them. Like what college he went to, where he worked, what his secrets were.... She had looked at his house on Google Streetview. Took a virtual walk around his neighborhood and made a screenshot of the ocean view from the nearby park that he had mentioned watching the sunset in. It was her home screen on her cellphone. Fine, she admitted to herself. It isn't just a nice view. She had definitely gotten stalkerish.

He brought the plates to the table and set them down. It smelled delicious. She looked at him, not sure if he would want to say Grace or thank the Goddess or have a moment of silent meditation, something fitting his spiritual leanings. He raised his glass, clinked it gently against hers and quietly said "To friendship." She nodded, trying to look away from him and fight the anger and frustration that rose like a sudden hot wind threatening to scorch everything it touched. She took a large swallow of her wine. Suddenly she wasn't hungry. She squashed her anger down into a hard sticky wad, like gum left under the desks in the high school she taught at. "Breathe," she thought, her favorite soft grey t-shirt with that word in flowing cursive across the chest at this moment hanging wet and cold in his bathroom.

She finally took a bite of the roast chicken and one of the garlic potatoes. Her appetite started to unfurl. He had told her that he was a good cook but she had blown it off. Most men thought they were good cooks if they could put an edible meal on the table. This was definitely higher calibre. The potatoes were seasoned with something she didn't recognize, something fragrant and a bit spicy. There was the right amount of garlic too. She looked down at the plate, which was now empty, then looked up startled to see him smiling at her.

"You were telling the truth about being starving," he said with a soft chuckle. Heat rose in her chest and she flushed a deep red. She was always so careful about how much she ate, controlling her appetite, especially with others watching. Somehow she had not felt out of control during dinner, just comfortable with their conversation, the easy way it had flowed from the superficiality of the local political scandals in her home town to deeper philosophical topics of life's higher purpose. She had not even had that much wine, she realized, but her head was spinning a bit. They had so much in common, and it felt so easy, sitting here with him, not thinking about how she looked or sounded, just... just having dinner with a friend, she suddenly realized.

He got up and cleared her plate and disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the water running, and suddenly realized that it wasn't the kitchen tap but the one in the bathroom. Where her wet clothes were hanging. Including her bra and panties. At the time she had felt very brave and a bit naughty leaving them there in plain view. Now she just wanted to crawl under the table and disappear. What was she thinking! She should just leave quickly now and spare herself the embarrassment.

She got up as he re-entered the room and started to stammer out some lame excuse about needing to be up early the next day to attend the conference plenary session. He leaned against the wall, half-smiling. She felt the flush rising over her chest and neck again and fought back the tears of frustration welling into her eyes. Was he mocking her? She had thought that he was so kind and thoughtful, that he would be different. That she would be different with him.

He came over and leaned towards her. Whispering right against her ear so she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck he said so quietly she wasn't even sure that she wasn't imagining it.

"You can't leave yet, your clothes are still wet."

Then he softly kissed her neck under her ear, then the corner of her jaw, drew her up against his body and held her gently, as if he was afraid she might break. She moaned softly and turned and kissed him hard, full on, not holding anything back. It was not like the first time he kissed her, at the end of the last conference when she had turned to give him a hug as instructed. So lame, those touchy-feely team-building exercises at the symposium. The facilitator had asked everyone to turn to the person next to them and tell them what they would do differently the next time they encounter conflict. After that we were supposed to then hug or shake hands, whatever felt most comfortable. She was a hugger. Her hands were always cold and she was constantly worried that shaking hands would give people the impression that she was cold-hearted, despite the old saying "cold hands, warm heart." That kiss was a sudden attack goodbye that was hard and bitter and full of regret. She did not understand the bitterness until much later, after their correspondence filled in the gaps of his story, how and why he had left Laura, why he could only consider her a friend. She knew that Laura's infidelity had torn his skin off in slow shreds, one layer at a time until he lay bleeding and defenseless. How he had pulled his flayed body off the rack, and left her and their baby, then tried unsuccessfully to win her back. In his heart he felt that Jonah was his son, even though he knew he wasn't the biological father and could never be his parent. Laura had moved back east, and broken off all communication.

She knew that he would never do that to another man, that the fact that she was married, however unhappy that marriage was, made a relationship with her out of the question. But here she was 6 months later at another conference in San Diego, in his apartment having dinner. Dinner with a friend.

But his hands were not where a friend's hands should be, holding her ass firmly and pulling her hips tightly against himself so she could feel the bulge his swelling cock made in his jeans. He kissed her deeply, hungrily, pressing her up against the wall in the entryway. She came up for air and caught her breath; inhaling deeply, she felt his scent all around her.

"No boundaries," she said, looking him straight in the eye.

He looked frightened for a split second, then it passed and he shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Fuck boundaries."

"I like it when you talk that way," she whispered and kissed his chest where his shirt gaped open, then opened the next button, kissed again, and kept going until all the buttons on his shirt were undone and she was kneeling in front of him. She made tiny circles with her tongue on his belly just above the waistband of his jeans. The button popped open easily for her with the pressure behind it and she unzipped his fly slowly, teasing him with her lips on the fabric of his shorts and enjoying how his breath became ragged with desire.

He sank to the floor beside her and pulled her up roughly to face him.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, searching her face for any sign of reluctance and finding no speck, no trace, no hesitation whatsoever.

"I've wanted to do this since June."

She sighed, finally able to tell him the truth, not playing at nonchalance, not pretending that she hadn't thought of him every day, every hour since they had met.

She got up and gestured with her head towards the door at the other end of the hall, where she presumed the bedroom was. He rose, took her hand and led her in.

She gasped. The rain had stopped and the view was breathtaking. The full height windows looked out over the downtown city lights, with the inky black mass of the bay and the ocean on the horizon beyond. The other walls were lined with books, and the bed was on a loft platform with a line of flickering candles on a high shelf above.

She turned and punched his arm, hard.

"You bastard, you set me up."

He grabbed her and hoisted her over his shoulder, doing a reverse fireman's carry up the ladder to the bed on the platform, and tossed her in. Somehow a handful of the sarong caught as he did so, and it stayed in his grasp rendering her completely naked. He laughed and shrugged out of his shirt, then took off his jeans.

"Where were we?" he asked, kneeling beside her.

"Breaking boundaries" she said, pulling him on top of her and kissing him softly this time, slowly, letting her fingers linger on the small of his back, down over his boxers, tugging gently at the fabric to let him know that it was time to lose the last thin boundary of fabric between them.

He quickly shimmied out of his boxers and started to run his fingertips over her breasts, over her belly, down to her thighs. She sighed and he leaned in to kiss her, following the path his fingers made with tiny brush kisses and then with his tongue. He bit her erect nipple and she squeaked and pushed on top of him with strength he was surprised at in someone so petite. She was supposed to be in control here, but her entire plan had gotten completely hijacked. Well, the end result looked like it was going to be the same, but still. She wanted control.

She kept her thighs tightly closed and lay with her belly on his cock, feeling the drop of wetness on its head, feeling her own wetness spreading. She shifted slightly and watched his face, his obvious pleasure at what she was doing. Suddenly he flipped her over onto her back and was on top of her, holding her wrists, his knee forcing between her legs. He stopped, looking at her for permission to continue, then kissed the corner of her mouth. He kissed her ear and spoke quietly into it, in that soft, low, almost impossible to hear whisper. "Will you feel guilty if I fuck you?"

"Probably" she said hoarsely, opening her legs and guiding him towards her soaking pussy. He entered slowly, too slowly for her. She wanted him inside her so badly, she arched up against him and wrapped her legs up around his thighs, taking him deeply, feeling her clit grind up against him. She was so close to coming but he took it slow, sliding gently, teasing her with the whole length of his cock, wanting to take his time. His hand slid under her ass and he pinched her, then he pulled out and licked a line down her belly, around her clit and down to her ass. He made a figure eight with his tongue, slowly caressing all of the sensitive spots, and she started to moan, a low, guttural sound of pleasure that he was shocked to hear but that turned him on even more.

"Fuck me now, please, please, please, oh I want you to fuck me hard," she kept repeating, begging him, her soft voice catching in her throat.

Finally he obliged when he could not delay himself any more, sliding his cock into her again and again, faster and harder. The whole loft seemed to be shaking. The whole loft was shaking. She came in great shudders just before he did, and held him tightly, not wanting to separate, not wanting it to end. The bed kept shaking.

"We made the earth move, baby" he whispered in an Austin Powers English accent, giggling and nuzzling against her neck. The earthquake sent out a few small aftershocks, which were matched by her deep shuddering breaths that calmed into soft sobs. He held her and brushed away her tears until she fell asleep.

He watched her breathing. Listened to the soft whistle her exhalations made. Her lashes were dark on her pale skin and the pink light of dawn lit her hair in a red-gold pool over her cheek. He looked out the window wondering when her flight was leaving. "No, I am not ready for this," he thought. "Not anywhere near ready."