Too nervous to eat! That was love.
Inside the envelope, I read—
I just thought you’d be hungry. Paulie (behind the counter) wants to take your picture for his daughter, who’s a big fan. I ran out of kinds of poems I know. Meet me at the Empire State Building. I’m probably cold by now.
S.
I snickered and took another bite of taco “Paulie, I’m going to take this one to go, too.”
“Can I get a photo?”
“You bet! Your tacos are great!”
I snapped a photo with Paulie, laid a greasy kiss on his cheek, then leaped to the awaiting car.
“It’s not convenient driving food,” I told Billy by way of apology for the taco.
“We’re going to hit so much traffic going uptown, I’ll have plenty of time to eat,” he reassured me.
I passed him a wad of napkins then settled back for the traffic jam. I could barely string a thought together from one minute to the next, and, in the end, I just twisted my fingers together and stared at the city rolling by. I concentrated on the old couples walking together, and hoped that Sam and I would be one of those pairs, hobbling along with canes, but still holding hands.
Finally, after what seemed like an eon, we arrived at the base of the gorgeous Empire State Building. I’d never been here before. It rose from the street in stripes of gray and silvery windows. “Well, this is it,” I said.
“Good luck! I’ll be here when you come down.”
“You won’t be bored?”
Billy held up his tablet. “I’m writing an Oscar-winning screenplay.”
“Make sure there’s a part in it for me.” I slung my bag over my shoulder then opened the door to the chilly night.
I ran into the building and bought a ticket for the observation deck. In the elevator to the top, I took a few selfies with some of the occupants—others looked on confusedly, wondering who the heck I was. Who was I? I was Sam’s wife, and he was my husband, damn it.
At the top, I bolted into the night. A giant fence protected us all from the terrifying-amount-of-stories drop to the ground, but my stomach clenched with nervousness anyway. Me and heights were not friends. I had a mission, however, so I pushed gently into the crowd until I reached the edge. Wind sliced through me, but the glow of my heart could not be contained. My ass still got mighty frigid, though.
I didn’t see him anywhere, so I began to circle. There were throngs of people, but I put my head down, my hood up, and worked my way around slowly. Halfway down one long side of the building, I saw that the next corner was vacant of people, save for some musicians—I spied a cello top, and some skull-capped heads.
A flicker of excitement bloomed in my belly, and I soldiered on to that spot. Music wafted toward me. I broke through a group facing inward—watching a crazy guy standing in front of a four-piece ensemble. He wore a beautiful dark gray suit, and his dimple shined through the foggy night.
Sam. My Sam. My Sam, New Sam, Old Sam, Blue Sam.
He did look cold.
He opened his mouth, and I yelled, “Wait! Before you say anything, I have something for you.” I rushed forward, took one of his frigid hands, and shoved the frame into it. “I stole this!”
Then it occurred to me that an enormous group of looky-loos was surrounding us. I got closer to Sam, gazed into his fathomless brown eyes, and whispered, “It’s stolen art. I became an art thief for you, as a gesture of how I accept you and love you, and please don’t leave me.” My lip trembled, but I bit down on it, hard, determined to appear noble and not pathetic, even though I was literally begging him. I didn’t get on my knees, though. These were good tights.
He cocked his head. “You thought I was going to leave you?”
“Yes, I—”
Someone in the crowd whooped, and I finally took a good gander at what was happening. Over in the dark corner sat chairs and a table, with food laid on, and lit candles. The four-piece band all stared at me with grins as wide as the Mississippi. There was even a standing heater. And behind Sam, between two of those pay-binocular-thingies—sat a gong.
A fucking two-foot-across gong hanging on a big, wooden holder.
“You’re not divorcing me?” I whispered. My breath began to come in quick little pants.
His face froze, and twitched, and he started laughing, hard, nearly falling over. He looked at the picture. “Jesus? You stole me a picture of Jesus? Whatever Jesus would do, it probably isn’t this.”
I plopped my hands on my hips. “It was the only art the Ninety-Nine Cent Store had!”
The crowd was starting to ask noisily what was going on, so he walked me to the table and chairs. He covered his mouth and fell into his seat, guffawing so hard that a tear streamed down his face.
“Don’t laugh at my grand gesture, you shit! As my grandmother would say, you could use some Jesus. Or Buddha. Somebody.”
He placed a hand over his heart. “I’m touched. I really am.”
“I’m famous. This could’ve turned into a Winona Ryder shoplifting incident. I risked my career for you.”
“Ninety-nine cents.” He wiped his cheek. “And I will bet you that buck that you left money when you took it.”
I stared at my red-clad feet. “Maybe.” I’d put the dollar on the shelf. Plus New York state tax. It had likely gotten stolen, but I had tried.
He put his head in his palm and stared up at me, his eyes sparkling in the candlelight. The band started playing again—I cocked my head, recognizing the, “Olivia Newton-John?”
“They had to learn the music. Shocking, I know, that they didn’t have Physical in their repertoire.” Gallantly, he presented the table. “Sit.”
I sat, nervous and jittery. What was happening? He definitely wasn’t ditching me. Still laughing, he propped Jesus on the table, facing me, and poured red wine for us. A white plate sat before me, covered by a silver dome.
“Are Ellen and Nicolette safely ensconced on their honeymoon?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“So nobody is going to get between me and the gorgeous woman in the red dress?”
I giggled and fluttered my fingers on the table. “No.”
“Good.” He grabbed the back of his neck, seeming suddenly hesitant, and rubbed his palms together. “So…” He took a deep breath. “I know you said thirty days and all…”
I had to sit on my hands to keep myself still.
“But I don’t need thirty days. My therapist has heard a lot about you, and she told me to trust my gut. And my gut, and my eyes, and my ears, all tell me that you’re loving and brave and kind and—well, you’re pretty fucking great.”
I bit my lip to stop myself from speaking, for this little speech was going splendidly so far. I am pretty fucking great, it’s true.
He rose and walked around his chair. “Look, I don’t know if I’m ever going to remember it all. But I-I’ve recovered some.” Leaning over, he snatched the dome from my plate.
I gasped. Upon the plate sat a gaggle of potato balls. The first tear slid down my cheek, and I clasped my hands together—I had not told him that we’d conducted our first conversation over a potato ball.
When I looked up again, he was walking to the gong. I laughed, a half-laugh, unsure of what I was seeing.
“I don’t know,” he began with a cheeky grin, the dimple in full effect, “if we said the gong meant pro staying together or con, but I think that since I actually found a giant gong and hauled it up to the top of the Empire State Building, I should get to ring it. So, Samantha…” He picked up the mallet from the stand and bashed the shit out of the thing.
Me, the band, and the crowd all jumped, the metallic noise reverberating through the night.
“I love you.” He hit it again, his muscles rippling with obvious delight.
I covered my ears with cold hands, and I started laughing.
“I want to marry you!” he yelled. “Again!” He swung once more, dropped the banger thingie, then hurried over to me
.
The crowd went wild, clapping, whistling, whooping.
He fell to his knees beside my chair, grabbed the center potato ball, and offered it to me, palm up. “Will you marry me again?”
Full. On. Sobbing. It felt like my heart was overflowing and leaking out of my eyes—that my love would envelop me, drown me, burn me to a cinder, and other things that make no logical sense. I nodded and took the potato ball. Laughing hard now, I started to bite into it, but pulled it back. “There’s—there’s nothing in here, right?”
“Not except potato and…frying, I guess?”
I nodded and took a huge, warm, delicious bite.
He said, “You don’t put enormous Tiffany rings in a potato ball.” From his coat pocket he withdrew one of those little blue boxes, and I squealed, just like I was supposed to. He opened it, facing me, to reveal a huge, emerald-cut ruby solitaire.
I set down the potato ball, my hands suddenly numb.
“You already have a diamond, the one I gave you the first time. So I got you something different. Now both your hands can be ridiculous.” He slid it on my right ring finger. “I thought about blue, to match your eyes, but then I decided on red, to match your hair, and your fiery—”
“Shut up and kiss me!”
He rolled his eyes. “Ugh, we’re hitting every cliché.”
I launched toward him, and we fell to the cold, cold concrete. The band started playing the dulcet strains of Magic, and I kissed my husband. His mouth was cold and laughing—it wasn’t a pretty kiss, but brimmed with love and happiness and oooh, a little tongue there at the end.
A fresh round of applause broke out. Our audience snapped pictures and hugged each other, and I buried my face in Sam’s chest while he waved.
“Sorry,” he whispered, his warm breath waking up my frozen ear. “I didn’t actually think this through to all the people watching.”
“Some thief you are.”
“Yeah, well—I’m not one of those anymore.” He squeezed me anew. “I’m your husband.”
“Hey! Sir, I told you, you can’t just set up stuff on the deck!”
We looked as one into the face of an exasperated security guard.
I climbed off Sam and offered a hand to help him stand. “You didn’t get permission for this?”
“Asking permission is not really something I do. He’s ruined my act twice.”
“And now he’s kicking you out completely,” the guard said, his arms crossed.
The crowd began booing him.
I grabbed my plate and popped the rest of my potato ball in my mouth. It tasted like love. And frying, which also tastes like love. “What if we share with everyone?” I waved the plate below Mr Security’s nose, and he cracked a smile even as he shook his head. The band started to play even louder. A little girl ran through and rang the gong. It was a party!
Sam looked on with smiling eyes while I signed a couple of autographs and took some pictures. Me and my new ridic ring would make the rounds on the gossip blogs tomorrow, for sure. Soon the hubbub quieted to a dull roar and the wine was gone—the crowd had taken the bottle and passed it around. Sam escorted me down the elevator and ushered me into the car with Billy. “You go home, our home, and put on something sleazy. I need to clean my mess, but I’ll be there shortly.”
Billy gave me a thumbs up for the sleazy part.
As I drove away, I hugged myself to the words ‘our home’. Our home. Ours.
I was so damn ready to be sleazy, I bounced in my seat all the way there. Before I left the car, I tipped Billy enormously and gave him my card with an invitation to read his screenplay, if he wanted. Maybe he was the next Taylor Monroe!
Wait—
Our doorman Oswald made a big deal out of seeing me again, as did Edmond at the front desk. I gave them both hugs on the way upstairs, but I had no time for chit or chat—mama was getting laid tonight!
The moment I burst through the door, a small, black form leaped onto the back of the nearest couch. Mewr! He ran toward me, and I scooped my Taco into my arms. He head-butted me and let me rub my face between his ears for a whole minute before he started eating my hair. True love. I draped him over my shoulder, him still slobbering into my coiffure, and took a moment to appreciate the view of New York before I began my real mission—Operation: Slutty Wife.
We made our way to the bedroom, and I set Taco on the bed so I could get to work. Heh heh—‘work’. Off came my coat, shoes, tights, dress. Bless central heating, for my nasty lingerie was enough to keep me warm. Hot, even. I put my heels back on, and spritzed Sam’s favorite perfume along my neck and on my inner thighs—if you spritz it, you will come!
I checked my hair and makeup, and lit a bunch of candles until the room looked like a Pottery Barn catalog. Everything accomplished, I flopped onto the bed, patted my cat, and awaited my man.
My phone buzzed—my mom texting— Well???
I replied, Success! Tell you all about it tomorrow.
I told you so! He’s going to love that waxing.
That’s when I turned the phone over—when I said ‘tell you all about it’, the ‘all’ did not include anything involving my lady parts. My mom’s TMI-O-Meter was most definitely broken.
The front door opened then slammed, and I scrambled up to my knees in glee. Taco leaped to his paws, back crooked in terror, and I patted him as apology for startling him. He bounded off the bed, presumably to greet his master. I made an alluring pose on the bed to greet his master.
Fast footsteps, and Sam burst through the open door. He stopped and stared, his gaze caressing my everything. Somewhere along my boobs, he started licking his lips, and it took all my control to keep posing seductively instead of jumping on his head.
“Are you going to stare, or are you going to touch?”
He began touching himself through his pants. “I’m gonna do both.” He kicked off his shoes and stepped closer. “Tell me.”
I sat up on one arm. ”I love you.”
One step closer. “Even as I am now? I wanted to give you space to really think about it. You seemed…you seemed not very into me at the wedding.”
Oh, no. Shifting onto my knees, I reached out both my hands. He sat on the bed and took them. His were chilled to the bone, and his face flushed from being whipped by wind. “Sam, I was convinced that you weren’t into me, that you were going to end it, because I hadn’t heard from you.”
“I hadn’t heard from you!”
“I was giving you space!”
He stared laughing. “So are you telling me that after all the hell we’ve been thorough, we almost…polited ourselves out of our marriage?”
I scooted closer and touched the soft hair at his temples. “We figured it out eventually. It’s important to respect one another in a relationship and to give your partner room to grow as their own person, wherever that growth takes them.”
“Valuable advice from a lady in two square inches of underwear.”
“Damn right. I’m smart and bouncy.”
His face registered an appreciative leer, but then sagged, his eyebrows crumpling. “I was so scared when you disappeared. I knew—I knew then that I couldn’t live without you. That all the memory stuff, we could work it out. But not without you. I don’t need my memory to remember you. I think you’re in my bones.”
The look he gave me melted my bones. A tear slipped down his cheek, so I threw my arms around him and kissed it away.
That first kiss seemed to open the floodgates, and he was atop me in the blink of an eye. He raked his fingers through my hair and kissed me, his passion rendering me putty in his hands. I hoped the sculpture he made out of me was of the erotic sort.
Soon said hands began to wander, as did mine, over his shoulders, his rippling back, his firm, gorgeous ass. I settled there while his mouth worked its magic, caressing me fervently, coaxing the desire out of me. Wasn’t a tough job. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled his hips into mine. It was as if I couldn’t get close en
ough to him—I was homesick for his bare skin. I tore my mouth away and gasped, “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
He sat up on his knees and practically ripped his shirt off in his haste—one, two buttons, then he just yanked the whole thing off, T-shirt included. I unbuckled his belt and pulled so hard he lost his balance.
“Hey, I want to stay on the bed!” he said, laughing.
He rolled to the side to get rid of his soft suit pants, and I sighed at the sight of black boxer briefs, which featured a lovely, hard cock. My hands couldn’t seem to stop themselves, and why should they? I caressed the length of him, and his eyes closed with pleasure. His delight brought me my own, and I sat up to kiss him, still stroking his hardness, and he wrapped both arms tight around me, as if I might flee.
“I can’t breathe,” I said, reaching for his steely grip in order to make it a little less steely.
“I’m sorry.” He loosened his arms and eased me onto my back. His forehead resting on mine, he said, “I’m afraid you’re going to get away again.”
“Better pin me down then.”
“Mmmmmm.” After a long, slow sigh, his muscles eased.
He nuzzled my cheek, again and again, making me feel like a cat being petted. I giggled.
“What are you laughing about?” he murmured contentedly.
“Nothing. Everything.”
He placed a warm kiss on my neck, in just the spot that gave me shivers. “I like giggling. Please continue giggling.”
I gave him what he wanted. He nuzzled my collarbone. I giggled some more, just to be polite, you know, not because my heart and soul were filled to brimming with the utter delight of reveling in the glow of one’s true love.
His lips, his hands made their way to my breasts, covered so little by the red bra that I don’t even think it qualified. His tongue licked one peaky little nipple, and I gasped.
“I like that sound, too,” he said. “Let’s see if I can hear it again.”
He licked the other one, a flick, a tease, and I moaned again, not even on purpose. His teasing was beginning to make me squirm underneath him, and he gazed down my body. “Your shape is so damn pornographic.”
The Wrath of Dimple Page 25