by S. A. Wolfe
I’m pretty much useless at this point. Between her sultry expression and her light touches, I feel like I have invisible shackles. I can’t move.
Her gaze doesn’t break from mine and, at that moment, I feel my gut clenching, almost a tightening pain from my chest to my stomach.
It’s her. I want her, and not only in the carnal sense. She should be mine.
I give myself an invisible smack of reality. I’ve been out of action for too long. My body is simply reacting to this sexy woman in my bed.
I pull her back down to me and roll on top of her, conscious of her scar and keeping my weight off her. As she wraps her arms around my neck, I’m lost in her beautiful blue eyes. Yes, I have to have more of her. Her body, only her body.
I’m as hard as I can possibly be and could come in a matter of seconds, but I do everything to control myself so I can take this long and slow. I don’t know how much time I’ll have with her, how many weeks, or even days, our little game of casual sex will last, so I’m going to make sure I don’t waste our limited time together with quick, sloppy fucks in a janitor’s closet or a car. For now, I want to claim every part of her and record this, brand it in my memory. It seems vitally important to know what it is to be with her, to remember everything about her. To remember Talia. Because, at some point in the near future, I will be nothing more than a passing memory, a guy she spent some time with before the “right guy” came along.
Fuck that. Where’s that easy mantra of mine when I need it?
Feeling irate and horny at the same time, I reach over to the nightstand and pull out the whole box of condoms. The thin cardboard crumples in my angry fist, and condom packages fly everywhere. Talia laughs.
I grab the closest condom, rip it open, and put it on as fast as I can. Then, before this woman beneath me can finish her laugh, I slide back into her. She moans and glides her hands down my shoulders, gripping my forearms tightly as I thrust completely into her. I hold still, my arms and jaw tight with control as I study her relaxed, euphoric expression.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers.
“I didn’t plan on it. But I like looking at you. Give me this moment.”
“Aw,” she teases. “How sweet.”
As I move slowly inside of her, she moans again and closes her eyes. I lean down and lightly kiss her eyelids, then her soft lips, and then her neck. She moves slowly with me, arching her back, moving her hips against mine.
Lowering myself down on one arm, I fondle her breast and begin caressing every part of her that I can reach with one hand. She escalates her hip action, trying to get me to move faster, but I control the pace with long, slow thrusts. Her frustration shows, and I enjoy this temporary power I have, my own way to consume every part of her.
The animal in me wants nothing more than to flip her over and take her from behind, but I can wait until she’s satisfied. I’m feeling grateful and sentimental; uncharacteristic for a guy who likes to serve himself and get back to business, the kind that doesn’t involve romantic entanglements.
When she shudders to a climax and clenches around me, I lose myself in my own release. It’s a grunt and a yell as I finish with the urge to collapse.
I quickly assess the slight woman beneath me as I throw myself to the side before landing on the bed. Then I pull her in for a tight hug because I want to keep touching her. She looks up at me and gives me a contented smile, and it feels good.
I’m generally not a hugger or cuddly person, especially after sex. I like to have the rough-and-tumble sex, shower, and be on my way. Sex is a way to recharge my batteries, but there are a whole host of emotions coming into play with Talia, and the desire to hold her is one of them.
She moves up and kisses me, her lips persistent, and I give in completely, kissing her back, enjoying it all too much.
Jesus. I stop the kissing altogether. Sex is one thing, but a kiss is the worst thing that could happen, worse than having sex with a friend. A kiss is too intimate. It says so much more about how a person feels. The last thing Talia and I need is to confuse our casual sex with something more.
Talia disengages herself from me and gets out of the bed. She saunters into the bathroom, allowing me to admire her ass as she walks with a sexy sashay. I take note that I’m usually the first one to leave the bed. Clearly, Talia is the one in charge and my confused ego didn’t get the memo.
While she showers, I collect some fresh towels and an extra toothbrush for her. When I walk into the steamy bathroom, the only thing that separates us is a flimsy, vinyl shower curtain around the big clawfoot tub. I’m tempted to step in there and soap her up.
Talia is humming to herself while I stand there thinking of what I’d like to do to her body. A few exciting thoughts take over my brain. It would require a bit of gymnastics, but I’m ready for more sex. Instead, I drop off the bath items for her, sneak back out, and head toward the other bathroom to take a very cold shower.
Twenty minutes later when we walk out of the house, the bright sun and the dewiness of a spring morning makes us smile at one another. It’s a corny moment, and it’s also the best fucking feeling to be with someone who makes you feel incredibly high on life.
Shit. I’m living in a Hallmark card. Well, except for the sex.
“Can I drive?” she asks, beaming and doing a little skip and jump toward my truck.
“Why? I thought I’d drop you off at your house, then head to Swill.”
“I never get to drive anything fun. I’m always in that big, boxy, nerdy van. I’d love to drive your truck and take you out for breakfast.”
“Really? You want to head over to Bonnie’s and get some eggs? I like hanging with the senior crowd at the diner.”
“I love Bonnie’s, but no. I’m craving fast food,” she says as I toss her the keys. She gets in the driver’s side, and I slide into the passenger side, waiting for her punch line.
She looks at me and laughs.
“I’m sorry. I can’t believe you want fast food. You’re a chef; isn’t it illegal for you to eat Hot Pockets?”
“I can eat whatever I damn well please and, right now, I want some greasy cheeseburgers from BooHoo Burger. They serve twenty-four-seven to people like me.”
“Whatever my lady wants, my lady gets.” Too late for me to take those words back. I should have said the instead of my.
Talia pretends she didn’t hear the possessiveness and drives us out onto the interstate. I use the time to check my phone and catch up on messages from Greer and Bash, who are indeed both at the restaurant.
“Time to put your phone away. I’m treating you to breakfast burgers!”
“Sounds awful.”
She pulls the truck into a drive-through, a relic from the 1970s with a giant, creepy clown statue right out of a B-movie.
There’s a dilapidated playground that’s closed off with caution tape around it. I guess, back in the day, families hung out here on summer evenings. The clown must have been the main attraction. He’s holding an old speaker box with one hand. The other hand is broken off, along with his red ball nose and part of his painted white face. It makes him look menacing, the kind of clown that lures kids in and eats them. The burgers must be out of this world for this dump to still be in business.
Talia pulls the truck right up to the clown, and I notice the speakerphone he’s holding has dangling cords and there’s a large, unappealing dumpster right behind him.
“Are you sure this is where you place the order?” I ask. The proximity of the dumpster to her window is alarming.
“Sure. I mean, I’ve never used the drive-through before. We always eat inside.” She sticks her head out the window and speaks right into the rusty black speaker, the clown grinning down on her as if this is a trap. She orders six cheeseburgers and fries, and I laugh, wondering where the hell she’s going to put all that food.
There’s a crackling sound a distance away, and then we hear a young guy’s voice. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
>
Talia pops her head up and looks up at the clown as if he’s the one speaking to her. I suppress a laugh.
“Ma’am,” the teenage voice says again. “Could you pull up to the window? You’re talking to the garbage can.”
Talia notices the dumpster behind BooHoo the clown, and I roar with laughter.
Talia glares at me with pursed lips. “Well, how was I supposed to know it’s broken? There’s a big clown with a microphone!”
“I could have told you it’s out of order. The cables are cut. Go ahead and drive to the window; give the kid your order,” I say, grinning.
In a huff, Talia guns it and squeals the wheels for the next fifty feet before slamming on the brakes at the window.
The kid appears as I imagined—a young teenager with acne and a dorky paper hat.
She places her order and asks him to add two strawberry milkshakes. I keep my opinions to myself about the bright pink drinks and the greasy bags she hands over to me. I grab a few salty fries and hold the bag open so she can help herself while she drives.
“You are planning to share this with your mother and sister, right?”
“No.” She waves a french fry in the air. “This is for us, and I want to take you someplace special where we can eat it. Something I want to show you.” She looks over at me and widens her eyes in delight.
“I’m intrigued.” Truthfully, I don’t know what to say to a woman whom I just had amazing sex with, the woman who instigated the unusual just-sex agreement.
“Don’t get too excited. It’s nothing kinky. You got your sex quota for today,” she deadpans, and I smile at the easiness with which she jokes about us.
“I tossed my quota. The goal is never-ending.” My attempt at humor falls short. I haven’t figured out what I’m doing yet, or how I’m going to manage the restaurant and see Talia every day, acting nonchalant about sex meet-ups. That is, if it actually happens again. Maybe she intended this to be a one-time thing.
I’m about to turn on the radio to break the weird silence when Talia begins humming again. A few words in Polish escape as she studies the road, appearing oblivious to her own singing. I sit back and listen, watching the expansive landscape of the countryside unfold before us.
I still don’t know the area that well. I spend all my time at Swill and have yet to venture out of town for anything other than vendor meetings. When I was a kid, a trip to the country was taking the D train down to Coney Island for the day. We weren’t much on hills and pastures and fresh air. This is all new to me, but I can’t help being moved by its beauty.
And her beauty.
I steal a few glances at Talia, who is completely enamored with driving my truck. She powers her window open and flicks on the radio. When she finds a country song to sing along with, her accent is more pronounced. The whole scene is pretty comical. I’m more of a hard rock guy, so this image of her singing about drinking whiskey and eating biscuits and gravy is adorable, especially with her hair whipping wildly around her face as she tries to keep up with the tune. There’s a smile on her face as if she’s dreaming about something better. I doubt it has to do with me.
We take a long, rambling dirt road up a slight incline until a stately Victorian comes into view. The home has seen better days. The white exterior has aged to a dirty gray, and the black-trimmed shutters are missing on half the windows. It’s four stories high with turrets, a crow’s nest, and widow’s walk on the top floor. The home looks as unsafe as the BooHoo Burger playground and clown. It’s abandoned.
“It’s the old Pickwick estate. It used to be grand. What do you think?” she asks happily as she parks the truck near the grand front steps that are severely warped.
“I think it needs caution tape around the whole property.” I get out of the truck with the food bags.
“Aw, don’t be so negative. I love this house. Don’t you think it has potential?”
“Potential as what? The backdrop for a horror movie?”
“Imagine it completely renovated with all its natural woodwork restored. That huge porch brought back to life with wooden rocking chairs and hanging flower baskets.”
“And then what? Do you have the kind of money to live in a house like this?”
“No, I think it would make a great bed-and-breakfast, an inn that also has fine dining, and an organic farm.”
“Are you serious?” I ask too sharply.
When she flinches, I hear my mistake, my judgmental tone.
“Yes.” She hoists herself up on the hood of the truck and begins divvying out the burgers and fries between us.
“Why the need for all this farm-to-table nonsense? Pretty soon, restaurants will start putting live chickens on the tables and asking customers to kill and pluck them. You could call it The Feeding Trough. Or Pigs to Pots.”
She laughs. “Or The Purposeful Pea.” She bites into her burger with gusto.
“You’re kidding, right?” I take a bite of one of the burgers dripping with grease. “How about Organic Shits? Man, this burger is good.” The post-sex hunger sets in, and I’m suddenly ravenous. I polish off the burger and start on another.
“The Spotted Sparrow,” she states.
“Why not make the name appealing? The Organic O. People would come just to find out about the O.”
“Talia’s Edible Inn.”
“I don’t think you get it, sunflower. Talia’s Outhouse.”
“Talia’s Greenhouse.”
“Boring. Where the Swine Meet the Fiddleheads.”
Her laugh is infectious. “You’re making fun of my dream. I need real names.”
“You mean you want something safe, like The Fermented Fig? You’ll draw more attention with Orgasmic Organics.”
“Stop!” She laughs as I finish my third burger.
“You know your fast food. That was great. I’m stuffed.”
She has a spot of ketchup on her cheek, and I wipe it off with my thumb. This should be awkward—sharing a laugh and a meal after really hot, sober sex with someone from my workplace—but it’s not. Not awkward at all. I’m enjoying her company so much that I wish I could ask her to spend the day with me while I work.
“Don’t forget to dip your fries in the shake.” She demonstrates.
“Looks revolting. And you call yourself a chef.”
“It’s excellent. The sweet and salty effect. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Those last three words grab me in a place that’s usually off-limits. It’s the place in my soul only a few people can touch—my family, and that’s about it. The intimacy outside of the bedroom is what I’m afraid of.
Something has changed between us. If she’d let me, I’d take her right here. We’d be naked in a heartbeat, and I’d have her bent over the hood, giving our nature friends a nice show.
Chemistry seems to be key here. Atoms and cells screwing with my head. Those tricky, little bastards aren’t acting casual and cool about hooking up. They’re making it more complex. I keep reminding myself this is about two people who like each other enough to have sex but not enough to get involved. Good policy if it works.
Something is wrong with me. I am definitely on the precipice of being more involved than I should be.
“It’s a dream, not something I’m planning on,” she continues. Her cheeks are pink; she’s glowing. I’d like to say it’s because of the sex, but I think she’s over the moon talking about her dream career. She’s a good sport for putting up with my harsh jokes.
“Sorry if I came across like a jackass. I’m not putting down your idea. You’re very creative, and an excellent chef like you should have ambitious plans. I guess it’s the practical side of me that looks at every business opportunity with a lot of skepticism.”
“Why? If anyone should know about living your dream, it’s you.”
“Right, but it’s also not that easy. My dad and uncle are retired cops now, and the restaurants they run are doing well. But we learned the hard way.
“The first pl
ace we bought was a bust. They sank most of their savings into it. I was finishing college, and I’d come back on weekends to bartend and help with inventory. We didn’t know enough about our market or branding, so they had to bail before they lost all of their money.
“I was scared that my dad and uncle were leveraging their pensions, gambling away their future security. Fortunately, my mom’s corporate job paid the bills for my divorced parents to hold on to our two brownstones. Two mortgages, second mortgages, and college loans. So much debt, and so many kids to support.
“My brothers and sister had all moved out, but I was still living with my mom, and Dad was across the street with his new wife and new kids. It was insane. The downsizing didn’t happen until after my mother died. My dad finally got his shit together.”
“Your parents had a unique relationship. My father doesn’t help us financially.”
“My parents stayed friends. But, man, my mom was furious with my dad for being unprepared and throwing money at a bar he didn’t know how to run. And he has too many kids to be that careless. He and my uncle really fucked up, and I was too green to know better. I had more to learn from the pros running the best restaurants.
“After college, I got a good management position at a high-end place. That’s where I did my best networking. I made friends in real estate and met people who believed in me and who had the cash to invest. When we bought our next place in Brooklyn, I became the primary owner, and then we moved into the big leagues with our restaurant in Manhattan. My brothers are investors, and my dad and uncle technically work for me now. I love this business, but I worked my tail off to get here.”
I also vowed to never fail at business again.
To never let my family lose their money again.
Talia slurps down the remains of her milkshake and waits for me to say more. I’m not going to share with her how scared I was about my family coming close to being wiped out financially and that it motivates me to be highly focused, driven, and selfish. She already knows what it’s like to be scared of the future.
“Enough about that,” I say. “The point is, I had a lot more to learn, and I needed a strong network of people to back me.”