It was early February, and surprisingly warm for Seattle. Dripping with sweat in my workout gear, I was stretching on the floor of Curves, sitting with my thighs in a wide V formation. My trainer Candace handed me a water bottle to sip, and then asked: "Frederika, I'm wondering if you could do me a favor next weekend?"
I straightened up. "What did you have in mind?"
"It's for a friend of a friend. I used to work here with another trainer named Angela, who moved to Toronto back in 2012. She's close with this other woman from Toronto named Jenna, who does private swimming lessons for older adults. Jenna just broke up with her boyfriend and got a new job with a big new assisted living facility called Pacific Horizons that's opening up in Bellevue."
"Oh, I've heard about that place," I said. "One of my friends is moving her mother into that place."
"Well, here's the deal," said Candace as I rose and began stretching out my calves against the wall. "Jenna's rented a place in Capitol Hill, sight unseen. She's only been to Seattle once before. She's getting in on Wednesday. Now, Angela asked if I could show her around Pike Place Market on Saturday afternoon, to welcome her to Seattle. But as you know, I'm already booked to fly to San Francisco with a couple of my girlfriends. It would really mean a lot to me if you -"
"Could give Jenna the guided tour?" I said with a smile. "Sure, I'd be happy to. I was planning to do a little shopping down there on Saturday anyway."
"Thanks so much! I really appreciate it," said Candace.
When Saturday rolled around, I woke up feeling excited. I stayed in bed for nearly three hours, just playing with myself, using my fingers, caressing my body, and feeling good about myself. I had the curtains of my ground-floor apartment wide open so that anyone walking by could stop and watch. I was already imagining what might happen today.
At 2 pm, I met Jenna underneath the big sign at the entrance to Pike Place Market, with the fish shop workers cheekily tossing salmon around. When I walked up, she was distractedly fiddling on her smart phone, pushing her long, black, shiny hair out of her eyes as the wind gusted.
Jenna was in her early 40's, with little laugh lines at the corner of her eyes. She wore a white lace summer top that comfortably hugged her apple-sized breasts, a pair of high-waisted, fashionably torn jeans, and open-toed sandals that showed off her deep maroon pedicure.
Naturally, I was already sizing her up as a potential new lover.
"Your tour guide has arrived," I said.
Jenna glanced up. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I didn't see you there. Sorry, I'm so distracted. This move has just been madness. Hi, I'm Jenna."
"Frederika," I said, stepping forward to warmly embrace her. Jenna and I were eye to eye, and her nicely rounded swimmer's arms felt so good looped around my waist.
"Did your furniture arrive yet?" I asked as I led her inside the market. It was crowded but not too bad.
Jenna rolled her eyes. "Get this: they sent my couch and my futon to Sacramento. How do you do that? Unbelievable. Anyway, the dining room table and my chest-of-drawers made it. And I'm going to make a run out to IKEA next weekend to replace some of the stuff I left with Jake in Toronto."
"Jake?" I inquired.
"My ex," Jenna said.
"Did you move because of the break-up?" I inquired, as we maneuvered around a group of tourists.
"I just wanted a fresh start, I guess," Jenna said. "And my folks are planning to move out here next year as well. With Jake, it was just...a bunch of things. He wanted kids. I didn't. He made these new friends who were really into motorcycles, which is not my thing at all. We argued about money. We just drifted apart over the last four years."
"Apart from getting away from those cold winters, I think Seattle is going to be good for you," I said.
"Oh, I think so too," said Jenna. She stopped to check out some hand-crafted silver jewelry, and our bodies brushed. "By the way, I really like your outfit," she added.
"Why, thank you," I said. "I was just thinking the same about yours."
I was wearing a new, low-cut blue dress with shoulder straps. The hem fluttered just above my knees. I carried a new Burberry handbag with my Mini Wand toy tucked in an interior pocket. I also had on a pair of mid-heel Luca Ferri sandals in black leather. It was a little dressier than usual for me at Pike Place Market, but I wanted to make sure I impressed Jenna, and it warmed me to know that I was achieving my goal.
I didn't tell Jenna that I'd recently uploaded nude photos of myself on a foot fetish-themed web site, sporting only a mask, a collar, and those same Luca Ferri sandals, holding my cunt wide open with both hands and extending one foot toward the camera, with a fresh load of come trickling off the black leather.
Inside the market, Jenna leaned over the fresh produce at a farmer's stall. "You could never find cucumbers and radishes like this at my old supermarket in Etobicoke in mid-February," she said. "Fucking freezing there. What's this? Bok choy or something?"