The weekend passed wonderfully slowly with Tanya showing David the sights of her home town and he continued to marvel at her knowledge even about her own part of the world. He had never bothered to learn as much about New York as she obviously knew about history and landmarks around her own city. She was the perfect guide and he breathed her in as much as he breathed in the scenery around them.
Getting to know her in her home opened up so many new revelations about her also, that David hadn't foreseen when they met. In Vancouver she had fitted with ease into the surroundings that comprised their time together - upmarket restaurants and upmarket hotels. She had looked so much like she belonged in places like that that he had assumed she came from money and lived like that all the time. But seeing her here at her home was such a refreshing wake up for him. She lived modestly - incredibly modestly - in her little cottage that was homely rather than showy, and she gardened so she could have free fresh fruit and vegetables, and she walked everywhere in sneakers. And when he asked about her life growing up, she took him past the house she had lived in and he could see that she hadn't been, in any way, a rich kid. She had grown up with little, and still lived with little, and yet she was so happy and exuded vitality and appreciation for the life that she had. It took him to a new level of awe about her.
They saw no-one that weekend, concentrating only on each other and these 10 days they had together. On Monday morning Tanya reluctantly went through her regular routine in getting ready for work, while David watched her, enjoying seeing her in this role. She caught him looking at her as she put on her makeup and did her hair, and smiled at him.
"What are you going to do to fill in your day?" she asked him, and he was broken out of his appreciative stare.
"I will find something to do," he said, like he had a deep secret he wanted to hide from her, and she laughed at him before grabbing her things and kissing him goodbye, leaving him alone in her home.
As Tanya walked away, she had a fleeting panic - had she just left a man she didn't really know, alone in her house? She felt like she knew him but in total they had spent only a few weeks together. She watched crime shows on television - how often did things like this happen, only for the home owner, thinking the person loved them, to come home and find their house cleaned out. Tanya laughed to herself and shook her head, letting herself believe that he was who he said he was, and that he was here simply for her. And if he wasn't, well that would be her mistake to learn from.
David sat alone in the little home, finding it endearing. It was the first time he had been alone since arriving, and he took a moment to just sit in the morning sunshine, listen to the quiet and simply 'be'. In his apartment at home he could have total silence, so long as all the windows were completely shut, but as soon as a hint of fresh air could get in, it was full of noise from the city.
He let his mind wander over the time they had spent together since he had arrived. All the way here he had been worried that she might not appreciate him turning up, or she might have moved on with someone else - he had even pondered the possibility that she had someone else at home, who she had kept secret. But all of his fears had proven unfounded and she had been nothing but excited to see him. It was still a mystery to him how that came to be, and why it was, but he was loving that he was here and he was so welcome.
But this week while she worked, what was he going to do? He looked at the bench, remembering she had left him a key to the house, and decided to take his camera and walk. It wasn't something he had time to do at home when he was caught up in his work, but there was so much here to photograph - something he had had as a hobby for most of his life since his parents had given him a camera when he was a young boy. With that thought, he was out the door and off in exploration.
Later that day he found a local supermarket and bought groceries and went back to the little cottage to start cooking.
The day went slowly for Tanya, but she got through it and enjoyed her walk home. It was probably the longest that her and David had been apart while in the same city since they met, she thought to herself, and wondered how he had spent his day.
As soon as she put her key into the door and opened the house, she was overcome by smell - an overpowering smell of food that could only be delicious, judging by the scents she could pick up. She closed the door behind her, dropped her coat and bag, and walked through to the open plan living area, where David was standing in the kitchen, stirring something in a pot over the stove. He came forward to her, put his arms around her and gave her such a kiss - wow, what a kiss - and held her tight.
She looked at him in wonder, realising her thoughts about him not being able to cook were completely wrong. He went back to stirring what seemed to be a garlic and cheese based sauce, while looking at her with amusement. He looks quite pleased with himself, she thought, and gave him a brilliant smile in return before leaning in and kissing his cheek.
After she changed her clothes he sat her down and presented her with a bowl of pasta, covered in the sauce he had been making. She looked at it, and enjoyed smelling freshly cooked food that she had not prepared herself, and then looked at him as he sat down beside her. He looked so good too, she thought to herself, putting her plate on the table, and his, and jumping up so she could sit astride him and kiss him properly.
David received the kiss with enthusiasm, before remembering the food.
"Later, wicked woman - now we eat," he said, lifting her up and sitting her down on the seat once again.
She laughed at him and started to eat, relishing the flavours.
"Oh my gosh, David, why have you kept this skill such a secret?" she asked him while he watched her devouring every mouthful. He was mesmerised, until he remembered he should eat too.
They sat close, eating in silence, watching each other, until both bowls were empty.
"Hmm that was amazing!" Tanya said, sitting back and holding her very full tummy. When she turned to him she had a look of allurement on her face, making him alert. "You are a man of so many talents," she continued suggestively while laughing softly.
He continued to look at her - he just couldn't stop, he knew, so tried hard to shift his attention away from her mouth.
"How was your work?" he asked, moving conversation to maintain calm in the parts of his body that were threatening to wake up too much.
"It was busy today, but everything was good. I have been invited to a friend's birthday party this Saturday night. What do you think?" she asked, and he nodded.
"I think you should go," he said, suddenly feeling uncertain.
"Oh you think I should go," she said, laughing at his sudden shyness. "And you are coming with me, of course," she continued and he immediately looked more relaxed.
"If you want me to, but if you just want to see your friends…"
"I want you to meet my friends. They are all nice, you will see - they won't bite."
He smiled sheepishly, thinking that perhaps being in a room full of 25 year olds might highlight his age, and their age difference, and could cause discomfort to her and him both. But she seemed to want it so he agreed.
Chapter 21
The week passed much the same - David enjoying his photography while Tanya worked, and every day she came home to a different culinary delight, which continued to amaze her and push her desire for him even higher. Always at night they were both so hungry for each other - even after working all day, she was full of energy, David marvelled again. And the result was that he was feeling the youngest he had for an extremely long time.
On the Saturday night, as they got ready to go to the party, David had a moment of self-doubt. He was suddenly embarrassed that he was 42 and with a 25 year old - would her friends look at him like he was an old man, taking advantage of a young woman?
Tanya saw he was nervous and took his hand.
"There is nothing to be worried about - really," she said and he smiled for her, determined to not ruin her night.
They walked into some
kind of function centre, where there were at least 50 people in the room, and David felt like he was out of his depth here. He hadn't been social around new people in … decades, he thought. But for her, he would hold his chin up high and watch her for clues on how she wanted him to act.
Halfway through the night he realised he needn't have worried about anything - he should have believed her. The first thing he became aware of when he really looked around the people there, was that they certainly were not all only around 25. Tanya introduced him to close friends of all ages - some of them were much older than him even, so he actually nestled closer to the middle of her friends' age group, not at the upper end at all. And they were all accepting of him, and not at all seeming to judge him in any way.
"You are making her very happy, you know," said a woman's voice beside him. "She hasn't been this happy for a long time - not since long before her parents died."
David turned and saw a woman aged a little older than him.
"I'm Olivia, by the way," she said, holding out her hand for him to shake. "Tanya is my niece, but she lived with me for a while when she lost her parents, and she is like a daughter to me." She paused and looked straight at him. "I can see you are a good man - treat her with kindness and she will repay you a hundred times over. She is an incredible woman, my niece."
"Yes she is," David replied, watching Tanya on the other side of the room. She was always talking to people - they kept approaching her and pulling her aside, and everyone seemed to want to smile at her and laugh with her. But as he watched her, she kept looking back at him, looking right at him, like she didn't want to be away from him.
Eventually, after many attempts to get back to his side of the room but always getting pulled aside, she reached him and immediately kissed him.
"Are you alright?" she asked him with a glint in her eyes.
"Yes," he smiled back at her and then someone else was there, pulling on her arm.
"Tanya, come and meet…"
Tanya was off again, leaving him, while looking back at him and giving him a wink. Other new people approached David and engaged him with praise of things they had heard about him. And once he relaxed and got talking to them, he realised these people were all really interesting and amazing to talk to. No wonder she got on with them all so well - she was the same. They had such diverse interests and knowledge about different things. Over the course of the few hours there, David became engrossed in the conversations, even without Tanya being by his side.
At the end of the night, when the room had half cleared out, he stood alone again, and took the time to just watch her. She was talking to a man her own age, and David could see the man's face, looking at her. It played on his insecurity - something that he cursed himself over because it was just such a waste of emotion and feeling. From this angle he could see both of their faces, and knew in his heart that she was being polite, and attentive, but she wasn't looking at this man as she looked at him. As if sensing David in that moment, Tanya turned her attention away from the man who was talking to her and gave David such a look of intensity that David saw the man stop talking and follow her line of sight right to him. David quickly shifted his sight back to Tanya - he didn't want any man-confrontation stare-off - and he knew the look on her face. He saw her excuse herself from the man who had been talking to her - who seemed to have been silenced by what he saw - and David saw her walk straight toward him, where she put her arms around him and kiss him passionately. Not for long, but certainly with strength.
"Take me home?" she asked him and he laughed at her.
"Tanya, I am never going to say no when you ask me that question," he responded, seeing her desire, which she openly displayed and, to his amazement, made no effort whatsoever to hide.
"I just need to say goodbye to Olivia," she said, looking around the room until she spotted her.
He expected to stand still and wait for her but she held out her hand to him.
"Come with me," she said and he eagerly obliged, walking across the room, holding hands with this beautiful woman.
"Olivia, we are leaving. Thank you so much for inviting us," Tanya was saying while kissing the older woman's cheek.
"Thank you for coming," Olivia replied to Tanya and then turned to David, holding out her hand to him again. "David it is a great pleasure to have finally met you. I hope I will have the pleasure of seeing you again before you return home."
"Thank you," David replied, holding her hand and appreciating so much how welcoming everyone had been toward him.
* * * *
Soon they were back in Tanya's home, fulfilling their desire for each other on the sofa, with David reclining slightly backward while Tanya enjoyed moving up and down on his lap. It was only one more day that they had together before he was due to fly home, and she felt like she needed to drink as much of him as she could, to get through however long the next time apart would be. She felt and heard him orgasm and pulled off him to kiss him, full of passion, and he instructed her to lie back on the sofa, where he pleasured her with his tongue until she released, quivering under his pressure. He lay down on top of her, holding and kissing her.
"Come back to New York with me," he said, starting to feel that same desperate wish to not leave her side.
Tanya looked at him.
"David, I can't take any more time off work right now - I just got back from my last holiday," she said, feeling equally helpless as he was.
"Not for a holiday - come back to New York and live with me," he said, having spent quite a bit of time over the previous few days thinking about how the logistics of how they could continue to spend time together.
Tanya was speechless. The words he had said just didn't seem to process in her brain. He waited for her to speak and then realised she wasn't going to. He pulled off her and sat up, while she lay still, feeling like she was paralysed.
"Say something," he said, trying to break her out of her stillness.
Finally she seemed to come back to reality and react, sitting up and then standing, turning to him and holding out her hand to him.
"Come to bed," she said and led him quietly into the bedroom.
After getting comfortable under the covers, they held each other tightly, each in their own thoughts.
She turned to face him, lying on her side.
"Are you serious?" Tanya asked and he looked at her with deep longing.
"Yes. I want to sleep next to you every single night and wake up with you beside me every morning," David replied, starting to feel tears straining.
Tanya was quiet as she looked at him. Where had this man come from, who had flown all the way out here to see her and now wanted to pack her up and take her back to the US with him? And living in America - was that a tempting thought? She didn't even know, as she had only been to Anaheim in the US and knew that would not in any way be a reflection of real life there.
"I don't think I'm allowed to work in the US."
"I will support you," David offered, having already assessed the logistics.
"David, you can't just support me. I have to work … I have to have a purpose," she said and he understood that and respected it.
"Well, then, we will have lots of babies," David joked but that idea took root in Tanya's mind. She wasn't getting any younger and she did believe he would be a good, loving father.
She was quiet, thinking about so many aspects of his idea, and he watched her mind churning over. He thought she would speak but after a while, believed she was indeed speechless due to uncertainty.
"Don't decide now, just think about it," he finally said and she nodded quietly.
They cuddled and intended to sleep, but both lay awake, silently, long into the night.
Chapter 22
On their last day together they spent the day in bed, getting out only long enough to prepare and eat food, and enjoy a bath together. David was due to fly out early the next morning so would be leaving Tanya's house shortly before she left to go to wo
rk.
David held her hand late on that last night, wanting to hold her tight and not let her go.
"As soon as you are able to take some time off work - even just a little bit - will you come and stay with me?" he asked her and she nodded.
"My annual leave year restarts next month so I will have four weeks from then that I can use," she responded. "I don't even know anything about your home," she said, realising he hadn't spoken at all to her about where he lived. "Do you live in New York city? Or New York state?"
He smiled at her.
"I live right in the middle of the city. It is a world away from what you have here."
She nodded, feeling excitement at the prospect of going to New York.
"I will come and visit you as soon as I can."
* * * *
Once travelling back to the US, David felt yet another surge of loss, and hoped that she would reconsider living with him. He cursed himself for only having offered the one option - in reality there was no reason why he could not move to NZ, and even run his business from there if need be, but that was something they could discuss much later. Now he sat on another 12 hour flight from Auckland to Los Angeles, he could only think about how she wouldn't be nearby to hold or kiss, and already he yearned to see her again.
Meanwhile, Tanya took herself off to work, knowing her mind would not be on the job today but determined to do the best she could since it was important to her, and her boss had been so good letting her take so much time off recently. Now she had to consider asking for more time off - did she even want to risk asking for that?
Chapter 23
Another month passed and David had resumed calling twice a week, always telling her how much he missed her and wanted to see her. As soon as her leave was renewed, she requested two weeks off and was granted it, but in the interim was pulled into the manager's office and told that she was being laid off.
Cruising Through to Fulfilment Page 20