As if sensing her change of mood, he pinched her nose. “Behave yourself. We’re playing by your rules, and you said we’re going to be happy for the time we have, although as much as you’ve learned about me, you can’t think that I’m letting you walk out of my life for good.”
“But I told you—”
He held up both hands, palms out. “I know what you told me, but if it’s true and if you don’t have but one hour, I intend to spend every second of that hour with you. Do you hear me?”
When the elevator opened on the ninth floor, the one on which she had a room, he attempted to follow her, but she kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Don’t make it hard for me. See you at seven.”
Inside her room, she kicked off her shoes, laid out what she would need that evening and the next morning, packed everything else, and put her bags in the closet. She turned on the radio so that she could hear it while she took a bubble bath and did her best to empty out her mind. After applying her favorite body lotion liberally all over her body, she walked around nude until the excess lotion evaporated, put on the white terrycloth robe that the hotel supplied, got a sheet of hotel stationery, and wrote a short note to Winston.
Dearest Winston,
Always know that you have given me true happiness and that you have made these last days memorable. If I ruled this world, I would never leave you. You are the only love my life has known.
Petra
Petra put the note into an envelope, placed the envelope in her evening bag, and switched on the television in hopes of finding a tennis match or something else distracting that didn’t involve interpersonal relations.
She thought of calling her mother, but would the day be a happier one if she didn’t? She gazed around her hotel room. “This place looks as if it’s unoccupied,” she said to herself, “but that’s too bad. I hope Winston doesn’t become suspicious when he walks in here and looks around.” To lessen the chance of that, she hurried to finish dressing before he arrived.
“Why didn’t I ever wear anything like this before?” she asked herself aloud when she scrutinized herself in the red chiffon dress, silver hoops, slippers, and beaded bag. “I look like a different person.” She lifted her right shoulder in a quick shrug. “Oh, well. My looks aren’t the only things I’ve squandered.” She dabbed perfume in strategic places, and spun around toward the television when she heard Luther’s voice begin the song, “Here and Now,” only to remember that she’d turned on the radio.
“Oops!” She grabbed the cabinet door to steady herself when a wave of dizziness hit her. “You stay away from me,” she said, shaking her fist toward the ceiling. “At least let me have tonight.”
The moment passed, and she sang “Just My Imagination,” the Temptations’ hit song of the 1960s that her father loved and her mother hated. She hadn’t finished the first verse when she heard the knock on her room door.
His eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened when he looked at her. “You’re so beautiful.” His words came out on a slow breath, as if he breathed rather than said them. “Can I…Can I hug you?”
She opened her arms and knew again the strength and sweetness of his caress. He handed her a tiny package. “Put that in your purse and open it in the morning. It’s meant to commemorate this special evening.”
Petra tried to smile, but she wasn’t certain as to what her expression communicated to him, for he hugged her again and said, “I’m only going to think about the good things.” Her next thought questioned what those good things might be. She noticed that he didn’t leave his key at the front desk as he’d done previously, but she didn’t question him. He asked the doorman for a taxi.
“Madam is lovely tonight,” the doorman, who appeared to be about sixty said, “and it’s a fine evening to enjoy a lady’s company.” The comment drew a five-dollar thank you from Winston, and she smothered a laugh. She was learning that proper care of the male ego was tantamount to building bridges.
“My goodness,” she said to herself, “a restaurant with a canopy and a uniformed doorman, and we’re not even in New York.” As they walked to their seats, she counted the long-stemmed glasses at each place setting. Five. She hoped they served something other than wine or spirits, because she didn’t want Winston to think her a wimp. She saw the waterfall and the huge chandelier in the center of the room and caught her breath. He wanted to make the evening memorable; how could she forget it?
“This place is beautiful and so elegant,” she said to him after they seated themselves. “You’ve gone out of your way to make this a special evening. It’s wonderful.”
They refused cocktails and began their meal with lobster bisque. To Petra’s surprise she had no difficulty consuming the seven courses that ended with Floating Island and expresso coffee. “If anyone had told me that food could be so wonderful,” she said, sipping her coffee, “I would have named them liar. This was a feast.”
“I enjoyed it, too,” Winston said, “and I’m happy that you did. I won’t have an aperitif now. Perhaps later. What about you?”
She declined. “I wish I had a picture of that waterfall.”
Winston called the maître d’ and asked if he could borrow a Polaroid camera. “Yes, of course, sir. Where would you like the pictures taken?”
“By the waterfall.” She stood with him beside the waterfall, and the maître d’ took several pictures of them.
“Would you like one set or two?” the man asked Winston who, without looking at her replied, “two please. Thank you.”
“May I have my set, please?” she asked Winston when they were in a taxi on the way back to the hotel. “I’ll put them in my purse.” She didn’t want to forget them and, considering her nervous anxiety, she figured she was capable of forgetting her name.
They entered the nightclub that adjoined the hotel, and a waiter rushed to greet them. “Ah, my friend from last night,” the man said. “Would you like your same table? Come with me.”
They walked behind the waiter to the table they shared the night they met. “I’d appreciate his welcome,” she said to Winston in an aside, “if I didn’t think it was prompted by the size of the tip you gave him.”
“No doubt, but we tip for service, and he serves for tips. I haven’t previously thought about it but, in a sense, we’re both dishonest. I tip when I’m not pleased, and he’ll smile when he knows the tip is inadequate. I thought he was a good waiter, though.”
“Is madam having ginger ale tonight?” the waiter asked.
“I think I’ll have a margarita,” she said.
“Ah, so it is a special night. Madam looks lovely for it.”
“Thank you,” Winston said. “I’ll have the same.”
“Back where I come from, a man probably wouldn’t take kindly to his date’s receiving compliments from other men,” she said to Winston after the waiter left the table.
“These guys are Latin, and they court women even when they don’t open their mouths. After I got used to it, I realized it’s nice, so long as they keep it between the lines. Makes a woman feel good.”
She didn’t want to sit across a table from Winston, but to snuggle close to him in the curve of his arm. The waiter brought the drinks, and Winston hooked his arm through the curve of hers, and they gazed into each other’s eyes as they sipped their drinks. Suddenly, he rested his glass on the table. “This is…It’s hell,” he said under his breath, but she heard him and, at that moment, she cursed fate. The band members finished tuning their instruments, and the alto saxophonist blew the first notes of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.”
“Dance with me.”
She stood and went into his arms. They danced as one and, when it ended, they stood there smiling into each other’s eyes. Then, the band began a slow rendition of an old Fats Waller number from the Depression years, “Two Sleepy People.” Winston stopped the pretense, folded her close, and danced a slow one-step, barely moving his feet. When she rested her head on his shoulder, he asked her, “Do
you want to finish that drink?”
“No.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Yes.”
He went back to the table, signaled for the waiter, paid the bill, and said, “Thanks for everything.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” the waiter said. “Please look for me when you come back.” Winston didn’t answer, and she could see that he had to force the smile. He took her hand. “Let’s go.”
They stepped on the elevator, and she pushed the button for the seventeenth floor, taking from him the option of going to her room. At the question in his eyes, she said, “You said ‘Will you go with me?’ so I figured you wanted us to go to your room. What’s the matter? Are you sloppy?”
“Actually, I’m neat. I also wanted you to come with me.” His eyes darkened. “Are you really leaving me tomorrow?”
“Please let’s not be sad, Winston. If I could, I’d stay with you always.”
“I believe that.” He walked into his room holding her in his arms. “I’ve waited all my life to feel this way.” He kicked the door closed, let it support his back, and wrapped her to him. At last, she had his tongue deep in her mouth and his fingers loving her flesh as his hands roamed over her back and hips. She wanted to experience everything with him, because she knew it could only happen this once.
“Do you want me?” he whispered.
“Yes. Oh, yes. It’s all I want.”
He unzipped her dress, let it fall to the floor, and gasped when her firm and erect breasts stood bare before him. Like a child alone in a candy store, his eyes sparkled as his fingers brushed across her hardened nipples. “Mine. All mine,” he said, and sucked one into his mouth; he suckled her while heat plowed through her, tormenting her until the liquid of her passion dripped down her leg. When she undulated against him, he picked her up and put her in his bed.
He stood beside the bed, shedding his clothes and gazing into her eyes, then kicked off his shoes, bent over and slid his finger into her bikini panties. “May I remove these?” he asked her and was already ridding her of them. She opened her arms to him, and when he covered her with his body, she thought she’d die of happiness.
He stared down into her face, “I’m deeply in love with you, Petra. If you love me, trust me to make this work for us.”
“Surely you know that I love you, and I trust you.”
With his eyes, his lips, and his hands, he played her body the way a gifted lyrist plays a lyre. She tried to control her wild response until he whispered, “I’m trying to drive you crazy. Don’t fight it; let it have its way.”
“Why don’t you get into me?” she begged. “Now. I want to feel you in me.” He spread her legs, raised her knees, and went into her. Joy suffused her when he began moving in and out of her. Then he dispensed with the gentle strokes and started displaying his strength with powerful thrusts, thundering toward his goal until she screamed and capitulated, threw wide her arms, and yelled, “Take it. Take whatever you want, anyway you want it.” He accelerated his movements and thrust more vigorously.
“Oh, Lord. Help me. Help me,” she screamed and erupted into orgasm. His grip on her tightened and, as if shrouded in ecstasy, he splintered in her arms. She hadn’t known that a man could regroup so quickly, but within less than half an hour, he claimed her again, loving her until she exploded, imprisoning him within the fiery walls of her vagina. When he fell over on his back, she thought him enervated, leaned over to kiss him, and he pulled her on top of him and held her there.
Hours later, exhausted and spent from the many times they’d loved each other, he folded her in his arms, and his tears bathed her lips as he kissed her, murmuring over and over, “I love you. I can’t let you leave me.” Eventually, he fell asleep with his left hand between her legs. As soon as she could do so without awakening him, she moved it gently to his side.
For a long time, she gazed at Winston, asleep, his face relaxed and peaceful. Fighting back the tears, she leaned over, grazed his forehead with her lips carefully to avoid awakening him, and slid out of bed. She stood beside the sleeping man, watching to see whether he would awaken, and when he seemed to sink into deeper sleep, she began to dress as, at last, tears soaked her clothes. She finished dressing and pinned the note she wrote earlier to the pillow on which her head had rested.
Legs of lead propelled her to the door and, when she opened it, her hand seemed to glue itself to the doorknob. Finally, without looking back, she forced herself to walk out of the door and close it. Once outside the room, her presence of mind returned, and she sped down the corridor to the elevator. Minutes later, bags in hand, she checked out of the hotel, got into the taxi, and headed for the car rental office.
Only an hour had passed since she kissed him good-bye, but it seemed like forever when she ignited the engine of the rental car, and drove away from San Francisco and Winston Fleet. In the early morning darkness, she drove slowly, unfamiliar with the route she wanted to take and uneasy about the precarious status of her mind. Could she drive safely in eighty-mile-an-hour traffic? She didn’t care for herself, but for other drivers on the road. And could she handle the feeling that she stood at a precipice, about to scale a great divide, to cross an abyss of unknown depth? Maybe this was it. If only she’d brought her cell phone, she could call Krista and her mother.
About eighty miles south of San Francisco, feeling the pangs of hunger, she saw a sign pointing to Santa Cruz and took the next exit off Highway 101. She had envisioned Santa Cruz as a place where people drove flashy cars and lived in skimpy bathing suits, but as she drove through the town, she saw people dressed in business clothes dashing along at a dizzying pace, as if they wouldn’t have a second chance at whatever they sought. And nobody greeted anyone. By comparison, Ellicott City seemed dull and tame. She didn’t think she’d like to live in such a place. But it didn’t matter. She walked into a restaurant and took a table, looked down at the pants and shirt she’d worn repeatedly since leaving home, and grimaced at their worn appearance.
“What can I get you this morning?” the waitress asked her.
“I’d like some grits, scrambled eggs, and sausage, please.”
“Grits? I don’t know as we’ve got any grits, but I’ll ask.” She took out what appeared to be a walkie-talkie and punched a button. “Jimmy, we got any grits back there?”
“Not one ever-loving grain. Try buttermilk biscuits.”
“I’ll take the biscuits instead,” Petra said, “and coffee with milk.” She didn’t order orange juice, but the waitress brought it, explaining that the price of the meal was the same, juice or not.
“You’re not from ’round here, are you?”
“No. I’m from Maryland. Is there a hotel near the beach that’s not too expensive?”
“Girl, everything in this town costs an arm and a leg. Try the Breakers. Three blocks in the direction of the traffic, turn left, drive four blocks, and if it doesn’t get out of your way, you’ll drive straight into it.”
Petra’s lower jaw dropped, and the waitress laughed. “Local joke. These drivers don’t give way for anything or anybody. Some of ’em drive like they expect the Pacific Ocean to get out of the way, and the fire department has pulled more than one car out of it. Take care.”
Petra found the Breakers easily. She hoped for a day room, a place to rest and freshen up after sightseeing, but after comparing the reasonable cost of a room to the opulence of the lobby, she took an option on staying longer with full service. She collected tourist brochures and fliers from the hotel’s concierge and looked them over. It seemed that swimming was the most popular pastime, but she didn’t know how to swim, because the water frightened her. And although she had yearned from childhood to ride the Ferris wheel, her fear of heights had always stood in the way. She went down to a shop in the hotel, bought a bathing suit and a pair of blue, cropped pants, and went back to her room.
Minutes later she headed down to the hotel’s pool and asked the lifeguard for swimming les
sons. If she was going to do and see things she always desired to do and see, she should swim at least once. And you should ride that Ferris wheel, her mind nagged.
“You’ll need a few lessons,” the guard said. “Nobody ever learned to swim on the first try. Besides, I have to teach you when I’m not working, which means before ten or after six.” She made an appointment to meet him at the pool at nine the next morning. “Don’t eat first,” he called after her as she left the pool room. She went to the hotel registration desk and booked the room for three nights. If she didn’t learn by the time she had to leave, so be it.
“Where is that recreation place with the Ferris wheel?” she asked the registration clerk. He told her and added, “But that’s old hat. Try that thing that looks like an elevator.” She said she would, but she meant to ride that Ferris wheel as well as a roller coaster at least once. She hadn’t been scared standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, though she knew her lack of fear was psychological, springing from the knowledge that she had a terminal illness and not much life to lose.
She thanked the man, followed his instructions to the beach, bought tickets, fastened herself into the roller coaster seat, closed her eyes, and held her stomach with both hands. As the roller coaster made a figure eight, she laughed, screamed, clutched the man in the seat beside her, and at times thought she’d swallowed her heart. When it finally came to a stop, the man took her arm, helped her out of her chair and had to grab her when she nearly collapsed from a wave of dizziness.
“Sure you’re all right?” he asked, steadying her.
“Thanks so much,” she said. “I’m fine. I’ve never been on one of those things before. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”
“I guess I can be thankful for that,” he said, drawing her attention to the shirt sleeve on his left arm that had been ripped to threads.
She gaped at him. “You mean I…”
A Different Kind of Blues Page 13