Tempted

by Cj Paul

  After I get off the phone, I race to Trader Joe’s just before closing, in order to pick up some things I think David might like. I love having houseguests. And knowing it’s someone I have cared for so deeply, and will finally get to spend time with in person, warms my soul and fills me with gratitude.

  Once home, I unpack everything and try to find places for it all. Persephone thinks her toy box is a good place for most of it, and she grabs whole packages in her jaws and attempts to abscond with them. Jasper sits silently on the counter. I think I caught her shaking her head once or twice.

  When the day is finally done, I collapse on the large U-shaped leather sofa in the family room – a place I rarely sit unless I have company. It feels good to be horizontal and I’m sore from cleaning, having used muscles in places I didn’t know existed. With great effort, I manage to lean over to the coffee table to grab my laptop. I can’t wait to see if there is a message from Alex, and if so, what it might be about, what scandalous proposition he might make, how he might detail his ravaging of me. I’m thrilled to find his message.

  10:15pm

  Alexander Armstrong

  When I write to you, I speak to you directly from my heart. With no added eloquence or forethought. I think you feel that, you intuit it, and correctly. Most are overwhelmed by that sort of honesty and directness, but you glow in it. You crave more. And I think you're falling in love with me because of it. But you and I are alike in one absolutely crucial way: neither of us wants to have the world fall in love with us. We both want the people we reach to fall in love with themselves. And that, Cariña, along with countless other aspects of you, has me falling deeply in love with you.

  Shit. Et tu, Alex?

  Chapter Twenty-FourI love San Francisco. It feels like a movie soundstage to me. You can be on the wharf with the fishermen plying their fresh seafood, then blocks away, be in the largest Chinese community outside of China, and then, just another few blocks in the other direction, you can be immersed in Italian culture. So, I was delighted when Nimo suggested we go to Trattoria Contadina in North Beach for dinner.

  He picks me up without too much discomfort on my part. I always dread having him place his hand on my lower back when we are trying to get from point A to B. The drive to the restaurant is pleasant, and we are having fun listening to 90’s music, although our tastes are very different. I am an inveterate Grunge lover. His choice is Pop.

  Miraculously, we find parking right away, and though we are very early for our reservation, the restaurant is able to seat us now. They even give us a great little table by the window. We split a Caesar salad and some bruschetta, and I order the Valdostana: sautéed chicken breast, layered with smoked mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, oregano and sage, served with a Madeira wine sauce, sauteed vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes. Yum! Nimo changes his mind so many times that I have no idea what he actually ends up with.

  Once our entrees come, I broach the topic. I am interested in someone. His reaction is not what I expect.

  “So let me get this straight. You’re telling me that you can’t see me anymore because of a guy you met on Facebook who you’ve only talked to on the phone a few times and who lives across the country?” he asks.

  Suddenly I feel very small, and equally as foolish.

  “Yes,” I squeak, almost inaudibly.

  He just shakes his head and smiles and changes the subject. The rest of our dinner is light and genial, and you would think I’d told him that I’d decided to get the Torta di Cioccolato instead of the Tiramisu for dessert. That’s how much weight the bomb I dropped carries.

  A welcome buzzing tells me I have a text. I hope it’s from Alex. While Nimo is chatting it up with a couple at the next table, I steal a glance at my phone:

  ALEX: I am down in my dungeon, the basement office space I use for writing, and thinking of you. The dungeon has a gravity inversion machine, and I love the idea of strapping you in, flipping you upside down and naked, and doing lovely, naughty, loving and passionate things to you, with you. Enjoy your dinner

  I’m enjoying it now, I think, with a satisfied smile.

  During the ride home, I proceed to tell Nimo about David staying with me. His reaction to this news is substantially different than his reaction to hearing about Alex.

  “That Italian guy who cheated on you?”

  “He’s not Italian, he’s American and was living in Italy. And he didn’t cheat on me. He had a girlfriend there. It’s not like I slept with him or anything.”

  “No, cuz you only knew him online.”

  Zing.

  “Still, I don’t trust him,” he adds.

  “Well I trust him, Nimo. And it’s my house he’s staying in. He’s a really good person.”

  Nimo snorts.

  “Not everyone is like you, hon. Most of us mess up more often than not. There are very few people like you who always do the right thing and are more or less saints.”

  “He just better watch his step, or else,” Nimo threatens.

  “I’ll call you if anything happens. I promise. Feel better?”

  “We’ll see.”

  When we get to my house, Nimo gets out to walk me to the door. He doesn’t have the kind of manners that would inspire him to exit his vehicle just to open a lady’s door. I know he is only doing it now in hopes of scoring a goodnight kiss.

  I was right.

  I thank him for a delightful evening and give him a hug. He hugs back in a way that makes me claustrophobic. I feel guilty for harboring such an untoward attitude, but when someone I regard as a friend comes on too strong sexually – ewwww.

  When his mouth plants an amorous kiss on mine, I try to recoil but am still locked in his insistent embrace. I manage to extricate myself without too much ado, thank him again, tell him to drive carefully, and beat a hasty retreat, quickly closing the door behind me lest he entertain delusions of sexual grandeur.

  “Don’t forget to lock the door,” he calls from the front stoop.

  “Good idea, Nimo,” I call back, having locked the door the moment I closed it, for the sole purpose of dissuading him from popping in to make one more attempt at canoodling.

  * * *

  After the initial awkward fifteen minutes or so of showing David where I keep everything, things settle into a mellow and comfortable groove. We get on fabulously – no surprise there. And he’s a joy to have around, except when I’m on Facebook. He has an account, but never uses it, and is tickled to see how my weird, online world operates, its culture, protocols, and all the stuff he hears me react to.

  This morning David is busy at the breakfast bar, pacing and doing business on his laptop and iPhone simultaneously. I try to concentrate on research for my show with little success, thanks to a lecherous hunk from the Catskills who keeps messaging me. I tell him to stop and that I need to work, but I really can’t say no to his ineluctable advances, and a second later I’m asking him to please continue.

  11:08pm

  Alexander Armstrong

  I will stop at your command. Do you want me to give you some time to do your thing and get your work done? Or do you want me to make you blow it all off? I'm smiling, Cariña. Laughing in fact. Just a tad confused as to whether or not you want me to continue at the moment. And that's wonderful! But when you're here, with me, I'll be able to see what your eyes and voice and body say. And then I’ll probably do as I will anyway. LOL

  But you did say 'please.' And I bow to your wishes.

  11:11pm

  Claire Nichole Eden

  Do your worst

  11:16pm

  Alexander Armstrong

  But I love you, and I don't want to keep you from things that will pile up, or to have you neglect yourself in any way. I crave you, and long for you. You're the air. And although I can hold my breath, it makes me long for you when you're not swelling my lungs.

  And feel me, as I step toward you fast, walk you back into the wall, and hold you there, pinning your hands above
your head.

  Feel my forehead pressed against yours as I wildly devour your eyes.

  Feel me tug the front of your shirt down, so I can handle your breasts.

  Feel my mouth, my lips, my breath, my tongue, on your throat, while my hand wanders from your breast to reach between your thighs.

  Feel me spread your legs with one strong arm.

  Feel your breast in my mouth now, while I pull your panties aside.

  Feel me release one of your hands, and put it on my swelling erection.

  Feel me press you so hard to the wall that neither of us can breathe right. Feel us gasp for air. Feel us hard together.

  Unzip me. Take off my pants.

  Dear Lord! David is on a heated phone call and pacing my way!

  While I pull your shirt over your shoulders, not taking the time to pull it over your head. Take me in your hand. Rub me against you.

  Feel me turn you brusquely around, slide my hands around your waist, and bend you. Feel me hard against your ass, and feel me slide between your legs.

  Wet me. Before I enter. Feel my lips on your neck, playfully biting. Feel my hand in your hair, tugging your mouth around to mine. Feel a hot, deep, wet kiss, crazed and furious and longing, in perfect loving abandoned passion.

  Now feel me slip inside, feel your mouth spread, breathe the gasp that involuntarily comes, feel me touching every part of the inside of you, your sacred place.

  Feel my hips pressed tight against your ass. Grind into me, while I slowly withdraw, and thrust.

  I am having increasing difficulty keeping my computer still on my lap, as my bucking hips begin to betray me.

  Feel my hand still in your hair. A playful hard smack on your ass. Sensuous, not demeaning. A firing of the senses. Feel my hand, hard on your breast.

  Feel yourself pushing back to meet me, your hands pressed against the wall, swallowing and gripping me, taking me in.

  Feel the exquisite rhythm as it increases in intensity.

  Smell the salty sweet musky aroma of our sex. Hear the sounds of our bodies colliding. Hear gasps for breath and moans and vocalizations of animal origin.

  I’m not the only one hearing animal vocalizations. David is eyeing me askance as I try to pass off my moans as coughs and a case of indigestion.

  Feel me reach around to entice your clit, to dip my fingers in your honey. Feel me tease your nipple with my wet fingers. Taste yourself, as I now strum your lips and tongue. And crash into me with all the recklessness of untamed passion.

  Feel me growing, and pulsing within. Hard as steel and ready to explode.

  Then come on me, and release me, and feel hot, liquid heat spurting inside, and flooding you. I feel your contractions around me, while my entire body convulses beyond any control. Then feel me withdraw. Carry you into our bed. Spread you across me, as I enter you once more and stroke your hair, while you fall happily asleep with me inside.

  My laptop crashes to the floor.

  See me smiling. Perfectly content. In eternity.

  And that's all she wrote. LOL

  Call me later if you can. I'll be here.

  Call you? Call you? As if I can even talk sensibly after that!

  11:48am

  Alexander Armstrong

  Deepest apologies for getting so carried away. NOT. LOL I hope you're smiling. I'd wish nothing more than to be able to please you, and make you smile.

  Oh I am pleased all right, and smiling big.

  And all is right with the world.

  Chapter Twenty-FiveALEX: You have PERFECT breasts.

  Yeh, I sexted him. So sue me.

  Chapter Twenty-SixThey say the way to really get to know someone is to work with them, travel with them, or live with them. If that’s the case, then I’m finally, really getting to know David, and getting a kick out of it in the process. I’ve always thought of him as this tall, dark, handsome, Italian-speaking, cultured, continental, talented, artsy, brilliant, high-powered businessman. But living with him, I see a plaid-flannel-PJ-bottoms wearing, clunky-reading-glasses sporting, cereal-any-time-of-the-day eating, funny-little-quirks possessing nerd. He has a slew of odd rituals that he must perform in order to create, and has carved out a very specific routine. Hmm, sounds like someone else I know – me!

  Having him around has not been the experience I would have expected. Given the depth of my feelings for this man – my past feelings – I would’ve thought my time with him would read like a Harlequin romance. He smoothed his luxuriant hair off his noble brow with one tanned, sculpted hand, and I swooned while the cool, clear Agean ocean waters trickled down his carved, Adonis abdomen – that sort of thing.

  I would’ve expected every moment we connected to be charged with sexual tension and longing. I’d have expected to fall in love with him again, this time more deeply. Instead, it’s felt more like having a brother around, or at least as nearly as I can tell, since I’ve never actually had a brother. We sincerely enjoy one another’s company and we laugh a lot – something we’d never really done much of by phone.

  Having him here has definitely affected my interaction with Alex. No more moaning and writhing in the sunroom midday, while Alex is on speakerphone detailing his planned defilement of me. Alex’s new favorite pastime is trying to get me to squirm uncomfortably in sexual ecstasy right under David’s nose. Brat!

  1:13am

  Claire Nichole Eden

  Are you happy, my sweet?

  1:14am

  Alexander Armstrong

  Yes. And no. Happy isn't the word. Way beyond.

  1:14am

  Claire Nichole Eden

  How.......how did all ‘this’ come to be?

  1:16am

  Alexander Armstrong

  Love. It ties everything together. And it's at the heart of everything. It's the stuff quantum physicists keep trying to break up and measure into tinier and tinier pieces. But love. That's how this is possible.

  I mean honestly, how am I to work under such circumstances? Not to mention the fact that Nimo keeps checking up on me every hour, on the hour, to make sure there’s no ‘funny business’ going on with David. With David? Not likely. Alex on the other hand...

  The only funny thing David’s been up to is falling on his bum at the ice rink. It seems that during his last year in Asiago, his home base with Giselle, he took up ice hockey as a hobby. It was an excuse to have something to do away from the house. Apparently, things were chillier at home than in the ice rink. In his newfound enthusiasm for all things hockey, David nearly jumps out of his skin to learn that there are local semi-pro teams here in the area. Not just because he wants to attend a game or two. Oh no. Because he wants to try out for the team! Worse yet, his timing is perfect. The tryouts are this week.

  When David’s big night comes I wish him well, silently pray for him to not go down in flames, and help get him get his kit in the car – my car, that is.

  Just as I am settling in for a yummy night of Alexness, David comes bursting back in. “I’m a nervous wreck and afraid I’m gonna crash your car. Would you mind...?”

  “How ‘bout I take you and cheer you from the sidelines?”

  “Whew. Thanks. You’re an angel.”

  The ride there is tense in a ‘comedy of errors’ way. We hit every red light. There is construction with detours that don’t show up on any internet map or site. Plus, the GPS sends us careening down one-way streets – the wrong way, of course – and down three cul-de-sacs. Still, we arrive with ten minutes to spare, and I park the car while David races in to change. In my rear-view mirror, I see him drop his hockey stick and pads at least twice before I pull into a parking space.

  As I turn off the ignition, an unpleasant memory comes to mind – the night with Bret. My reactions to sexual advances like those from Bret and Nimo have always caused me to fret that I might be frigid. With all of my rules, routines, and animals, I feared I really was destined for stereotypical catladydom. After my heartbreak with David, it seemed the fiery des
ire part of me had either shut down or been snuffed altogether. That is, till my kundalini uncoiled. And that was when Alex came into my life. It wasn’t a long, laborious process. It was like the press of a button, one that only he knew how to locate. And he did so without even trying.

  Even now, when I am with David, all of my lust and longing is directed toward Alex. And that suits me perfectly. While David and I may have a lot in common as far as our tastes, personalities and dispositions go, Alex and I are more similar in other ways that put me at ease, specifically when it comes to our views of sexual intimacy.

  David, for instance, is what I’m sure one would call a world-class lover. Not that I would know from first-hand experience, or any other part of the body, for that matter. David’s approach to life centers on appreciating and sharing beauty, especially in others, especially in women. He sincerely loves getting to know people and learning what makes them tick. The intimate connection made between two people baring themselves sexually is the ultimate expression of this, for him. So, it’s no surprise that he has shared himself with a whole lot of women in this way. David’s actions come from a place of love – not romantic love for one woman, but love in general, and that loving spirit makes him all the more attractive to women, as it initially did with me.

  I once asked him for a ballpark estimate of how many women he’d been with, just out of curiosity. He demurred and said he honestly didn’t know. I prodded, asking if it was more than fifty. “Oh, heck yeh.” More than a hundred? “Ha! Yes.” More than two hundred? He sighed, “Yes, but really I have no idea. I stopped counting years ago.”