Although the time we spent together was memorable, how we met that night wasn't particularly odd. We were both stuck in Charlotte's airport. She was waiting to see if her flight to Chicago would happen at all that night because of snow at O'Hare. I was stuck since my short connecting flight home had no airplane. When the weather turns bad, equipment gets stuck somewhere and isn't available for other scheduled flights. We both could have gotten rooms somewhere in Charlotte and caught flights the next day, but we both wanted to get home, so we were both prepared to wait it out in the airport to see what might happen that night.
She had walked into the crowded airport bar and I had offered her my seat. Thinking back, the moment I offered it to her, my first thought was that she'd say no and maybe be insulted. In the eyes of some women, men aren't supposed to do things like that for women. But she did agree, almost happily, in fact, and to my surprise, she immediately insisted on buying me a drink in return. As she leaned into the bar from the stool to order two Heineken, I noticed the book she was carrying to read. It was Andrea Dworkin's,
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
.
The beers came and she turned in her stool to hand me mine. She was smiling a genuinely friendly smile. We clinked bottles and gave a mock toast to traveling in the winter. We both knew it could turn out to be a long night.
Somehow we launched into a conversation, probably because it had been a long day for both of us and we each had grown tired of reading alone in crowds. As people began to thin out in the bar, finding rooms or making flights, tables began to open up, so we took one along the wall.
I enjoyed listening to her talk as we cruised through the regular things, work, home, where we grew up, places we had both traveled to, all the expected things strangers talk about. As she talked and listened, I noticed her making more eye contact, smiling more comfortably, letting pauses in the conversation sit easily untouched. It was becoming pretty apparent we both liked each other. I suppose that's why when she asked about hobbies, I told her I like to write erotica and that I share stories I've written with a group of friends on the internet. I was surprised when her eyes lit up.
"I couldn't help but notice the book you're reading," I told her, "What do you think of erotica?"
She smiled and held my eyes for a moment. "Well," she began, "To some, erotica is just high-class pornography. But to others there is more of a difference. In my mind, and the minds of some feminists like me, erotica involves mutuality and reciprocity. Pornography involves dominance and violence, it often involves men using women somehow, whether paying them or whatever. Erotica involves willful, often eager participation. Women participate in erotica; they usually get exploited in pornography. So," she added, grinning then, "I like erotica while I think pornography sucks."
I smiled and waved at the bartender for two more beers before I told her I agreed.
I didn't get a chance to build on her point or ask any questions before she asked me what I usually wrote about and where I got ideas for stories. She listened and sipped her beer while I told her about some stories and how they were built around personal experiences. Fictionalizing events, I told her, playing "what if" with things that had happened or could happen. I told her of other times, writing stories for friends who had told me of their fantasies, things that interested them. It was rewarding in a special way to capture the desires of someone in a story, to catch the feeling that they were looking for, to have them like my description.
"I write too," she told me somewhere in the conversation, "But I've never tried erotica."
"Well," I suggested, "If you try, consider trying to write about something that hasn't happened to you that you would like to have happen. Take a real event in your life and shape it to include something about which you have a real desire or interest."
I could almost hear the wheels turning as she smiled and picked at the label on her beer. When she looked up at me her eyes were twinkling.
"Interesting," was all she said, but her eyes said there was more on her mind.
"Okay," I told her, "We're complete strangers and will probably never see each other again, so why not just tell me what you're thinking?"
She leaned closer and told me through a grin, "No lover I've known has ever cum on me, I mean cum outside of me, on me. And no lover has ever made love to, fucked, my tits."
For a moment I thought she was blushing but she wasn't. She was turning a bit red with excitement.
"And those things excite you?" I asked. "They excite you in a way that you could write about them and have fun doing it?"
She only nodded yes. I noticed then her eyes beginning to scan the bar. I could tell she was wondering if anyone had heard her, whether or not anyone was near enough to catch any of our conversation.
"Would you like to get out of here?" I asked, "Go somewhere more comfortable, more private?"
"There is a place?" she asked, smiling again.
This time it was me that only nodded as I stood and tossed some money on the table. She stood too and began to gather her things.
We walked through the terminal together lugging along our carry-on baggage. She told me she rarely traveled through Charlotte, so I told her a bit about the area and the airport. Charlotte being a hub for U.S. Airways, they had a great airlines club lounge. That's where we're headed, I told her.
We found the door and I pressed the button and waited for the metallic click of the door unlocking. With the click, I opened the door and let her enter, watching her look around as she entered. I showed the woman at the desk my card and asked if they had a conference room available. They did, so I signed up for two hours and left a credit card. She and I left our luggage in the drop-off room and walked through the lounge toward the empty, private conference room. I walked behind her, still watching her, liking what I could see, remembering that no lover had ever cum on her, or fucked her tits, as she had said. Such a thing to remember at a time when you're almost alone with someone, I know.
We found the room and went in. It was a small room filled with an oval hardwood conference table and a number of chairs around it. She moved toward the door and leaned back on it, locking it, I could see, with her hands behind her.
"Will this be one of your stories?" she murmured.
"Maybe," I told her honestly, "Maybe. Would you like it to be?"
"Yes, and I want to read it, I want to know it's me I'm reading about."
"Then I'll e-mail you the link or something," I promised.
What do you want your story to be about?" she asked.
I didn't answer, not with words, I just kissed her. My hands came up to her neck, then the back of her head, my fingers into her hair, and I let my lips finds hers softly, easily, tenderly. Her tongue found mine first, warm, eager almost, it seemed.
We stood there kissing, beginning to undress each other. Her finger moved over my suit coat and removed it, they took away my tie and tossed it toward a chair, they took my shirt away, too. They found the buckle of my belt and loosened it. My feet had helped her, freeing themselves of their shoes and socks. Without the belt, my loose suit pants fell by themselves.
My hands were trying to match hers. They had removed her sweatshirt and worked her jeans down her hips. They had even discovered the secret of her sports bra and solved it.
