Ronit had been hurt and most recently widowed, and she once cheated on a devoted boyfriend out of boredom with everything in life but him. She determined that avoiding those kinds of offenses offered rock-solid protection from adding future fear and guilt to the fear and guilt already breaking her back.
That afternoon, Ronit and her psychologist spent the session discussing the wisdom of this approach. Ronit reviewed their work on the drive home. Once tired of ping-ponging around her headspace, she looked forward to her dogs and a quiet evening.
It surprised her to see Noak's muddy bike locked to the porch of her three-flat. Had he ever worked at her place on a Friday? Not that it mattered to the dogs. They greeted her like rescued castaways, as if Noak had ignored them all afternoon while working at the dining room table.
At present Noak lay stretched out on the back deck. He wore cycling pants, and his shirt covered his face.
"Hey, beautiful," he said when Ronit opened the door. "I now practice extremely hot yoga. And humid yoga."
She shot a squinty glance toward the June sun. "You know, you don't have to put the furniture back the way you found it."
"I disagree. Those little aggravations always pile up into anger."
"Lashir used to say loading the dishwasher caused more marital conflict than money."
"A wise man," Noak said.
From the water on the deck, she assumed Noak had sprayed his head and neck with the hose. He moved to sit at the top of the steps. Ronit leaned against a post facing him and shaded her eyes with her hand.
"I made the Spanish soufflé thing," Noak said.
"Which you can tell me the name of, along with its entire history."
"Know-it-alls never prosper. My last date from the app asked me if I was 'annoyingly intellectual.' My answer disappointed her."
Ronit nudged him with a bare foot. "And you don't have to cook for me."
"We can't have you eating cereal for supper three nights a week."
Their friendship, though genuine, for a long time existed on the periphery of Noak's relationship with Lashir. During their time together, the men used up the oxygen extending their bond. When Lashir died, Ronit called his parents first and Noak second, and whenever she saw Noak, unwelcome visions of that day rematerialized in her mind.
On the other hand, Noak had never let her down or hurt her or excluded her. His love for Lashir was beyond doubt. She knew better than anyone what their friendship had meant to her husband.
Ronit's physical attraction to him had been there for years. After one or two subtle incidents at parties--grinding her hips on Noak, standing close enough to feel his breath on her face--she policed her actions whenever she drank. Low-level heat remained, however. Noak once even gauged her interest in getting together. True, his words contained all the romance of an offer for a boatload of cod, but he spoke with the confidence of a person who thinks they've hit on a can't-miss idea.
"What's your goal with all this exercise you're doing?" she asked.
"We must win the war on man boobs," Noak said. "No mercy in the war on man boobs."
"No, honestly."
"I need to be in good shape to wrestle my demons." When Ronit waited for a straight answer he added, "Making changes, Rone. Having no expectations. Turning off my overthinking. Being present. The shit Yoda kept stealing. When life barrels downhill in the day-to-day, you gotta take a long look inside." Noak tapped his chest. "Signs said maybe it would help to get right with mindfulness."
"Woo-woo, you mean," Ronit said.
"You better be careful hating on the Buddha. Buddha gonna strike you down with loooooove."
"God forbid."
Ronit invited him to stay and eat what he'd cooked. Noak accepted but only if they sat outside for, as he said, adequate ventilation of his sweaty body. After the meal, he got ready for the ride home. Did she really want to hug him? he asked. Ronit did.
Their hugs lasted longer than in the past. Ronit's goodbye kisses, meanwhile, kept drifting from his cheek toward his mouth.
Noak turned back from the sidewalk. "Your hug means business. It says, 'I care about you, and I don't want to hear any sass.'"
"You're getting the message," Ronit called.
An hour's rest, a joint, and two warm dogs relaxed her, though the weed turned the type in her book into cuneiform.
Ronit paused to chase away zig-zagging notions of what she might want from Noak. She had reason to remain unattached. She long ago had used up her energy for men's shit. Lashir's shit, in fact, formed the deepest layer of a shit mountain that started rising in high school and came to include a stupid mid-twenties engagement, eight exhausting years with Tayut, and divers relationships and rendezvous. Not to mention her grief and fear, and the fear-squared of piling on more of either. Besides, calm reigned in other areas of her life--friends, health, money, job. Why disrupt a healthy situation?
That said, Ronit's loneliness harmonized with her strong, guiltless appetite and she rang Rek. Emotions messed up her thinking. Raw satisfaction she could manage.
"It's been a while," Rek said after the hellos. "What's going on with you?"
"I need to fuck," she replied.
He laughed. "Drink first? Your usual?"
"Lovely."
An hour later, Ronit drank a mouthful of negroni and joined Rek on the bed. He tinked his gin and tonic against her glass. They talked about a show, people both of them knew, and recent work on his condo.
Rek put down his drink to unbutton her shirt. The conversation continued, with husky breaths bracketing pieces of what each of them said. Ronit watched him lower the straps of her bra. His hand caressed the freckled area between her breasts. Without speaking Ronit asked him to place her glass on the night table.
"Stand up," Rek said.
The bra straps slid down her arms as she complied. In her insecure younger days, Ronit more than once thanked her DNA for well-proportioned breasts. A practiced flick with his thumb and forefinger popped open the button of her jeans. Ronit pushed the denim and her panties over her hips. Gravity did the rest. Ronit watched him undress. Though light-years from being a gym rat, Rek showed his lovers a take-care-of-himself body overlaid with generous black hair.
"You have protection?" Ronit asked as he stretched out.
"Always. Want to take off your necklace?"
"Haven't you heard amber is the orgasm stone?"
"From what I remember you don't need help," he said.
Rek's lovemaking differed from her other partners by following no set routine. In each of their four or five encounters, he paid attention to--well, everything. But always he focused on a specific part of her body. He had checked off most of the obvious places. When he started with a quick kiss between her legs, Ronit knew he planned to finish the list.
Not right away, though. He brought Ronit into his arms. She lost track of the time they spent kissing. Rek's instincts, as usual, picked up on her readiness to move on. His mouth worked down her neck to her chest. She put her hands in his hair. As he worked at her breasts Ronit breathed his name and God's name and other words besides.
Her legs stretched as wide as possible. Even at this stage she felt ready. It went beyond technique. The man's energy inflamed every cell of her body. His tongue swirled around her navel before he continued his descent. Caresses ran parallel over her waist and hips. Eyes closed, Ronit sensed rather than saw his face over her sex, and she let out low moan as his mouth found her entrance.
Kabai's oral was meticulous yet perfectly paced. People referred to him as Gigolo for a reason. This time, however, he surpassed his standard of attentiveness. Ronit wondered later if he worked from a map of her nerve endings. A finger toyed with her hole now and again. His mouth, meanwhile, moved from labium to labium but always lingered in the middle ground, now licking, now pressing hard with his lips. Ronit's cries ran the scale from high pitched to guttural.
The orgasm flowed through her, an animal release. Shockwaves left her flat on the mattress except for an involuntarily arching of her back.
Afterward, Rek cupped her crotch with his hand and moved up beside her. She turned into him, waited for life to return to her limbs. Ronit sipped her drink. They toyed with each other as they talked until Ronit returned the glass to the table and encouraged him onto his back with a gentle push. Her hand brought back his hardness--the Gigolo's natural state, people joked--and he took her waist as she straddled him.
"Wet enough?" Rek asked as he entered her.
"You look very proud of yourself."
Ronit pressed her hands into his chest and wiggled into her preferred position. At that point she threw aside sensuousness. Rek had seen it all, anyway. Her hips fast-forwarded to making quick circles against him. The increased effort flexed the muscles in her thighs. Rek's eyes locked onto her bouncing breasts. Ronit accelerated to what she liked best. It took time, and one or two pauses, but her second orgasm broke, this one the great but familiar kind.
Ronit was embarrassed by her bright red cheeks and slick chest and the swelling between her legs. In other words, not by feeling great, but by the fact she felt like an open book when it came to admitting gratification. It seemed uncool, too much information, and unwise to share with a man already too proud of his reputation.
To deflect Rek's attention she said, "From the throb inside me I'd say you're raring to go."
"What can I tell you?" Rek said. "I like to watch you work."
"I need to recover to return the favor."
"Let's skip to the end. Whenever you're ready."
She pitched her voice to mimic his earlier offer. "Stand up."
Ronit rolled off the condom. She took the head of Rek's penis between pursed lips before moving her mouth and tongue over its length. He tasted of the condom and her juices and the drops of cum that had risen to the surface while she rode him.
Ronit had no intention of matching his meticulousness. She moved her mouth around his girth in a spiral. One hand squeezed his scrotum, the other worked first the base of his shaft and then, as she worked her way along, returned to the first few inches.
