By way of introduction, let me say that if you haven't read the first chapters of this story, then much of the next few pages will mean very little to you. So I suggest you go back and read "Mister Jack Miller: Chapters 1 thru 9" to get the background on this tale. That having been said, please...read on...
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When I finally made it home, I looked at the clock. It was about four fifteen. I made a quick call to my lawyer and asked him if there was any new news, but he said it had been quiet for the last few days. I called work and checked in there. There would be a helluva lot of work piled up on my desk when I got in on Monday, so I resolved to make the most of my weekend, including pondering whether, with my new-found fortune, whether I even wanted to return to work on Monday AT ALL. Finally, I called Donna and told her that I made it home safely, and she told me again how much she was looking forward to seeing me again. There was a sexy lilt in her voice, and I decided then and there that I was not only going to have another shower, but that I would probably need to take another nap until she got here if I was to have any strength whatsoever for what I was hoping would be a nice night with her.
After the shower, but still wrapped only in a towel, I took a tour of the apartment, bringing into reality all the gifts that Donna had shown me via video earlier in the week. I put a couple of bottles of white wine into the fridge. then I walked into the bedroom. Donna had left a peach-colored teddy on the bed, perhaps something she had worn the previous night (though perhaps something she was intending to wear tonight?). I picked them up and smelled that rosewater scent. I dressed in black cotton/spandex boxer-briefs, loose-fitting white cotton pants, and a black silk shirt. Leaving a pair of slippers by the bed, I lay down on top of the comforter, rested my head on a pillow, and drifted off to sleep...
I had forgotten that Donna had a key. But when I felt her hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me awake, I was quickly reminded of the fact.
"Jack, sweetie. Wake Up. I brought us some dinner."
I looked up to see a vision. She had gotten her hair done. It was much shorter than I had seen it on the video the other night, but the cut was still very feminine. She was wearing a knee-length short-sleeved white dress which, had it been a little more sheer, might have passed for a nightie. But the thing that really got me noticing her was the fact that I could see her underwear through her dress. It had to have been the loudest color I had ever seen. It was a matching bra-and-thong set, in a day-glo orange, not unlike those glow-in-the-dark road construction signs you see on the roads. Even with the color muted somewhat by the dress, it was pretty intense.
"Damn, girl, you tryin' to blind me with that underwear?"
She giggled and said, "No, sir, I've got other things that'll probably make you go blind, but this was designed to keep your eyes opened. I knew you'd be tired tonight..."
She was sure right about that. Although if she knew that the plane flight was not the most prominent reason for my fatigue, she might have raised an eyebrow. Nevertheless, I latched on to an important fact she had mentioned. "Dinner...sounds good."
She rolled her eyes, perhaps having hoped that I was a little more interested in her than in the meal at the moment, which I was, but I still needed to replenish my strength somewhat if I was going to make it worth her while. She stood up and took my hand, helping me to get up off the comfy bed, and led me into the other room.
She had taken the dinner, which she had brought in styrofoam and cardboard containers, and transferred it rather prettily to some really good china. There were a couple of taper candles burning in nice antique candleholders, and a bottle of white wine sitting in a beautiful silver ice-bucket.
"Wow, Donna, that's beautiful. Almost a shame to eat it. Did you haul all these dishes over from your apartment?"
"No, silly," she said as I pulled her chair out for her before sitting down myself. "It's all yours. I had this place fully stocked, Jack."
"Which reminds me," I said as I stood up again to kneel by your chair, "I never properly thanked you for helping me out. Not just for the apartment, but for everything. I owe you a lot, Donna, and I hope I get a chance to make it clear how much I appreciate it all." With that, I turned her to face me in her chair, and took her face into my hands and leaned in to give her a soft kiss on the lips. It wasn't a probing kiss, but one that I had truly intended to be a heartfelt 'Thank You' for everything. She shivered slightly when I pulled back away from her face. "Oh, my...are you warm enough?"
She looked back at me, in a look that indicated she was trying to properly register that I was back in town again. "Oh, trust me, Jacob, I am so warm right now, it's not even funny...But..." and here she said this with a sternness that indicated that she understood how truly tired I was at the moment, "If we don't eat this food soon, IT's not going to be very warm, and YOU're going to end up passing out on me before nine....and we wouldn't want THAT to happen, would we?"
I couldn't imagine how she had remembered that the "Dragon of Fire" was my favorite dish from this restaurant, or that I always ordered a double helping of Pad Thai from THIS restaurant but not from any other Thai place I ate at, but she did. It was like she was my wife or something. I caught myself in that thought and had a bittersweet moment where I wondered how the cards had turned up that I had ended up with Wendy, and not her or Shari or someone like them. In short, it was a beautiful meal. The Zinfandel went perfect with the hot chicken dish, and even the tapioca dessert tasted about as fresh as I ever remember coming from that restaurant. I was full, and Donna seemed really happy, and really beautiful.
We sipped cappuccino out on the balcony (yes, the decorator had put an espresso machine into the apartment), then when a slight chill came into the air, went back inside and danced some slow dances to my Michael Buble CD. At one point during our dance, I had kissed her, this time not like the one before dinner, but a slow, sensual kiss, designed more to see where she was at, romatically speaking, whether she was ready to take this evening to another level. After receiving a "yes" from the kiss, I whispered into her ear, "I have to visit the little boy's room, but I'll meet you on the bed."
Of course, when I emerged from the bathroom, I saw her laying on her side on the bed, the last two glasses of wine from the bottle in her hand, looking toward me with an 'I've been waiting for this moment for longer than you can imagine' look on her face. I would later learn that she had had a crush on me since the first day she met me at my wedding, when she had appeared as one of Wendy's bridesmaids.
One of the things that I noticed almost immediately when I approached the bed was that while I was in the bathroom, Donna must have removed her underwear, because all I could see was white. There was no trace left of the loud orange screaming behind the sheer fabric. When I finally lay next to her on the bed, taking the wine glass from her hand and drinking a toast to 'Coming Home,' I noticed the shape of her body behind the dress, and the subtle colorings of her feminine charms peeking through in the dim light from the only lamp in the room, a single bed-lamp that shone from behind her on the opposite nightstand.
After the toast, I took the glass from her and set it on my nightstand, and lay facing her on the bed. We were both laying there, our heads propped up by our elbows, very quiet, with my Luther Vandross CD playing softly on the stereo in the other room. I don't remember--not even that night when we had almost kissed when we were setting up the surveillance equipment--ever seeing her look as delicious and inviting as she did right then. I inched my body closer, and leaned my head toward hers. The kiss picked right up where the one in the other room had left off, and I soon rolled her over onto her back, where she invited me on top of her to kiss her some more, and to run my hand over her body, caressing her all over through the light cotton fabric.