Sweet Seduction

by Anthology

  When the song ends, Ian and I look at each other, still swaying though the music has gone fast again. Colored lights paint his eyes so that I can't tell for sure if they're gray or blue or green. He says something I miss because of the noise, but that's fine because it gives me an excuse to lean closer to him. For his lips to brush my ear as he speaks.

  "Thanks for the dance," Ian says. His hand has found mine and he squeezes it gently, lifting it to look at my wedding and engagement rings. Then he looks at my face.

  I step out of his arms with a laugh and toss of my hair, self-conscious. Heat rises in my throat and cheeks. The warmth and pressure of his hands on me lingers even when I put distance between us, and he says nothing else as he leads me back to our group. We are separated after that, our friends taking up our attention, but I catch him looking at me more than once. Well, I guess that meant he catches me looking, too.

  At the end of the night, I'm still mostly sober and herding the rest of my group like a kindergarten teacher trying to get her class in from recess. Shelly's what she likes to call shit-hammered drunk, and the other girls, Terri and Lisa, aren't much better. Terri, as a matter-of-fact, who's spent the latter part of the night making out with one of the guys from the other group, is now trying to orchestrate a sort of twenty-one kiss salute for the groom.

  "C'mon, ladies!" She yells at everyone who passes. "Line up, give the groom a lucky kiss!"

  His face is covered with lipstick.

  "What's his fiancée going to say?" I ask Ian as we watch a bar full of drunk and giddy women line up to take their turns.

  Ian laughs. I think he's mostly sober too, but I don't know him well enough to be sure. He rubs at his mouth, then the back of his neck as he gives his friend a bemused look.

  "She won't know. He's going home with Steve tonight. What's her story?" He lifts his chin toward Terri, who's back to making out with...I think it's Steve, actually.

  "Recently divorced." I don't know her that well, she's Shelly's friend more than mine.

  Together, Ian and I try to get our friends into cabs. And there in the parking lot, we stare at each other with goofy smiles on our faces that won't go away no matter how hard I try. There isn't time for this, we both have to get in the cabs and drive away from each other. And that's the right thing, the best thing. It's the only thing.

  "It was nice meeting you, Ian." I hold out my hand.

  Ian presses it with his. Step by incremental step, we move toward each other. Shelly is shouting something rowdy from the back seat. Steve is begging for Terri's number.

  The whole world is Ian.

  But I can't do it. I can't let him kiss me. The rings on my finger have begun to pinch and bind and weigh me down, but that doesn't mean I can ignore them. At the last second, I turn my face. Ian stops a scant breath from the corner of my mouth. I feel his breath there and close my eyes for a second or two to keep the world from spinning.

  "It was great meeting you, Maura." Ian lets me go. Backs away. He gets in the front seat of his cab, but he turns to watch me from the window as it drives away. He waves.

  I wave back.

  Two nights later, while I'm toodling around on my Connex page, a notification pops up that I've been tagged in a photo taken by Terri. Ian's been tagged, too. I stare at it for a long time, that picture I didn't know was being taken. In it, we stand by the edge of the booth, blurry in the background, looking very serious and deep in conversation. We'd been talking about the differences between fast and slow zombies, and if they weren't really dead but sick with a virus, could they, in fact, be truly called zombies. A moment, captured forever.

  And then, dear reader, I friended him.

  ***

  Would it be weird, Ian types, if we talked on the phone?

  The cursor blinks in the little square box on my computer screen. We've been messaging back and forth for a while now. Not every day, but when we catch each other online, the conversations go for hours. There's very little flirting, certainly nothing inappropriate. I'm allowed to have friends, I tell myself. And that's all we are.

  Except for the memory of his hands on me. His breath on me. Except for the helpless way I curse myself for having passed up the chance to discover the taste of his mouth.

  No. That would be okay. Right now?

  Can you?

  Sure.

  I know that Ian is divorced. No kids. One dog. Good job. I know where he went to high school and college, the name of his first girlfriend and of his ex-wife -- they had the same name. He knows about my penchant for science fiction and horror movies, my allergies to bees, my fear of heights. We don't talk about my husband or my marriage, though I can feel the subject hanging between us. I tell myself I'd answer any questions he asks, but Ian never asks.

  My phone doesn't ring, though I watch it like it's a snake about to bite me. When it does, finally, I almost drop it in my haste to answer. My hands are shaking, and so is my voice when I manage to say, "hello?"

  "Hi." His voice is deeper than I remember it. Rougher.

  I clear my throat and take a deep breath. "How's it going?"

  "Good. You?"

  "Good."

  Silence.

  "So," Ian says. "Do you know why the big sale at the strip club was so unpopular?"

  Surprised, I say warily. "...No?"

  "Everything was only half off."

  I start to laugh, and it spirals up and up while Ian joins me. It's a stupid joke, but utterly endearing for all that. It's been a while since I laughed so hard. It's cathartic.

  We spend two hours on the phone until both of us, bleary eyed, agree we need to hang up or else we'll be useless for work in the morning. But though I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open and certainly can't manage to hold a coherent conversation, I don't want to end the call. I listen to Ian's soft breathing and wonder if he's fallen asleep.

  "You should hang up," I whisper, half-hoping he won't hear me.

  "You hang up."

  "No," I say with another laugh. "You hang up."

  "Where's your husband?" Ian asks, and suddenly I'm as wide awake as if someone stuck a pin in me.

  "He's upstairs. Sleeping."

  "Ah."

  "He has a sound machine." It feels simultaneously necessary and pointless to say that. Doublethink, the way they did it in 1984. I wonder if Ian's ever read it.

  "Well. It's late. It was great talking to you. Goodnight, Maura." No longer easy and light, Ian's tone has gone formal. Bordering on cold.

  "Right. Goodnight, Ian." Before I can say anything else, he's disconnected, leaving me to sit in the dark and stare at my phone and wonder what in the hell just happened.

  I don't hear from him for close to two weeks after that. He's more active than I am on Connex, posting comments on news stories and quirky status updates that show up in the news feed I normally wouldn't even check, so I know he's been online even if he's not logged into his messaging program. I tell myself not to care, but of course I do.

  Then, one night when I'm up late because I can't sleep, his name appears in my contacts list. I wait, breathless, my cursor hovering over it. Thinking I should send a message, but not quite able to do it.

  Because what if Ian doesn't want me?

  Why should he, after all? What point could he have in pursuing me, when it's so clear there isn't anything to pursue? Still, I open a chat window. I type a message, then delete it, start another.

  I shouldn't send him a message. I know it. So I delete it and push away from my desk. I should go to bed. It's late.

  And then, just before I make my computer go to sleep, a chat window pops up. It's from Ian. My heart leaps, then drops. I feel a little sick to my stomach, waiting to see what he ways.

  Hey, is what he typed, and I return his message within seconds.

  Hey.

  ***

  Daniel pushed the bottle of wine closer to Maura across the top of the kitchen island. "Connex is the devil."

  "Hey. You found me thr
ough Connex." She laughed and filled both their glasses.

  "See what I mean?" Daniel leaned back in his chair, swiveling it a little. "So then what happened?"

  "We kept talking. We became friends." Maura shrugged and went to the stove to stir the shrimp in garlic butter she was planning to toss with some linguine. "Isn't that what you do there? Send cyber pinches and look at pictures of each other's cats?"

  "Does he have a cat?"

  She shook her head. "No. Ian has very bad dog named Rowdy who eats stuff he's not supposed to."

  Daniel looked around her kitchen. "You should get a dog."

  "I don't want a dog. Hey, can you grab the garlic bread out of the oven?" Lots and lots of garlic, she thought. It could make kissing him later interesting. If they kissed at all. Never mind the night on his couch, they hadn't yet established what was going to happen going forward.

  At the table, they drank more wine while Daniel was properly appreciative of her cooking prowess. There was something eminently satisfying about making someone happy with good food, Maura thought, watching him dig in like he wasn't going to eat again for a month. She blushed at the sight of his mouth glistening with butter, the swipe of his tongue across his lips. He caught her looking and smiled.

  "To good friends." Daniel raised his glass.

  She clinked it with hers. "To good food."

  "Health and happiness," Daniel added, then looked briefly sad. He shook it off, focusing on her again. "So you met him in a dance club and became friends on a social network. What happened after that?"

  Maura hesitated, feigning a sudden interest in her plate. She twirled her pasta on her fork, though she'd eaten too much already and felt like Violet Beauregard after she ate the Thanksgiving dinner pill. She shrugged and tried to spear a shrimp.

  "I met my wife during an online board meeting with the group that had hired me to come in and do some basic city planning work for a small village in Guatemala. She was the accountant for this really small non-profit group. Mostly volunteers. It was one of the few non-denominational ones I worked with, which I liked. It meant there was no religion pushing on the people, not trading souls for clean water." Daniel sounded a little venomous about it, but then shrugged. "Anyway, the connection was bad and we were both really frustrated because the picture kept cutting out. I gave her a really hard time about the budget. She accused me of being greedy. I told her she was cheap. A week later she was sitting across a table from me, and I fell in love with her instantly. It was her smile."

  Maura smiled at that. "You believe in love at first sight?"

  "I believe in recognizing something in someone else right away, yeah." Daniel sipped some wine and studied her. "Sometimes, people just...fit. No matter what you do or don't do. That person just fits you like a piece of your puzzle, and there's nothing you can do about it."

  Maura drew a hitching breath at that. "Yeah.That's exactly it. It's like...I had this empty space that I didn't know about until I met him, and when I did, I realized it had been Ian-shaped all along. And maybe, if I'd met him just a few months later..."

  "What would've been different?" Daniel ran a piece of garlic bread through the butter on his plate and bit into it with a sigh bordering on orgasmic. "This is so, so good."

  Her own meal had grown cold without her eating very much of it. "Well. If I'd met him when I wasn't married, I mean."

  "Would you have left your husband if you hadn't met Ian?"

  The question was honest, if a little blunt, but she had a truthful answer for it. "Yes. Things weren't great already. I mean...happy people don't cheat."

  Daniel held up his hands. "No judgment from me. I'm sorry you weren't happy."

  "Things happen. I mean, we had plenty of money. No kids. A great house. We took vacations every year. We both loved our work. But we didn't fit together anymore, if we ever had. I'm not trying to revise history," Maura added. "I'm not saying I never loved him or anything like that. But things changed. I did, and he didn't. Or maybe it was the other way around, who knows. But I never set out to be unfaithful. I resisted for a long time."

  "No judgment," Daniel repeated quietly. "I promise you, Maura. I don't think you're a terrible person for falling in love."

  She gave him a sad smile. "Ian does."

  At that, Daniel got up from the table and came around to kiss her on the mouth. Sweet pressure. No tongue. He looked into her eyes. "Want me to beat him up for you? I know a guy. A couple guys, actually. Tough ones."

  She burst into laughter. Daniel sat back in his chair with a satisfied nod and refilled both their glasses of wine. "Thanks. I'll think about it."

  "No problem. It's good to see your smile." Daniel smiled, too, then glanced at the clock. "Shoot. We're not going to make the movie."

  Maura shrugged. "We could just watch something here?"

  "You sure?"

  She nodded, studying him. Thinking about the night on his couch. About puzzles with missing pieces. "Yes. I'm sure."

  Chapter Twelve

  Her phone rang and, bleary eyed, Maura plucked it with fumbling fingers from the dock on her nightstand. She dropped it with a clunk loud enough to wake the dead before putting it to her ear. "...'Lo?"

  "Hi."

  Maura sighed and scrubbed at her eyes, not daring to look at the clock. "Hi."

  "Everything okay?" Daniel mumbled from beside her.

  "Yes. Fine. Go back to sleep," Maura said and swung her legs out of bed, hating the cold. Hating being woken at asscrack o'clock. She grabbed a sweatshirt from the chair next to her bed and headed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  "Who..." Ian said. "You're not alone."

  "No. I'm not alone." In the living room, she bundled herself into the sweatshirt and then under a blanket on the couch, tucking her freezing feet beneath her. Her teeth chattered.

  "I'll let you go, then."

  "You woke me up, Ian," she said sharply. "Don't you dare hang up on me now."

  Ian said nothing for a moment. Then, "I shouldn't have called you, I guess."

  "But you did. So talk to me." She yawned behind her hand, waking up a little more. Sleep would be next to impossible at this point. "What's going on?"

  "Won't your...friend...miss you?"

  "He's sleeping. He has to get up early." Maura paused, but she didn't owe Ian an explanation about how it had gotten late while they watched movies, how they'd drunk another bottle of wine. How she could've made Daniel sleep on the couch but the comfort of a warm body next to hers had been too tempting to pass up.

  Let him wonder what had happened.

  Let him ask.

  But Ian didn't ask. "I want to see your face."

  "Now? God." She groaned. "I look terrible."

  "You never look terrible."

  She laughed at that. Bittersweet. "Ian, Ian, Ian. What am I going to do with you?"

  "Get on the computer. I want to see you."

  What had happened to her pride? "Fine. I'm logging in now."

  In another minute, her screen brightened with an image of her own face and the sound of ringing. She disconnected the phone call and waited for him to answer the video call. Another few seconds passed. Her face got smaller, and Ian's filled the screen.

  It had been a mistake to agree to it, she realized that at once. Ian was sleep rumpled and sexy, and when had she ever been able to resist that face? Also, he had "the look."

  Oh, she was a goner.

  "What do you want, Ian?"

  "Missed you." He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, leaning close to the screen. "I couldn't sleep."

  Maura bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from responding right away. When she didn't speak, Ian ran a hand over his chest and down to his belly. He tugged his shirt so the hem lifted slowly, showing just the hint of his belly.

  Fire warred with ice inside her. The sight of him was enough to peak her nipples and make her cunt clench, but Maura squeezed her thighs together and crossed an arm over herself. She kept her
expression neutral.

  "Go back to sleep, Ian. I'm exhausted, and I have to work in the morning."

  For a moment he looked uncertain, and that was when she understood how love can turn to hate in a heartbeat. He'd thought this would be easy, and she couldn't blame him. It had always been so easy for him to come back to her, before.

  He held up the note. Her own words scrawled there. The paper had been folded and creased, crumpled and smoothed. She hadn't written them large enough to read at the distance he held them, but she remembered what she'd said.

  We will meet in the place without darkness.

  She'd been tired when she wrote that. Overwrought. Two weeks later without a word from him in between, all she could do now was stare at the screen and say nothing.

  "What does this mean?" Ian asked.

  "Fuck if I know," Maura said. "I was stupid to write it. I guess I was stupid to think it you'd figure it out or know what it meant. I was stupid to think anything."

  "You're one of the least stupid people I've ever met."

  "Thanks." He meant it as a compliment, but she was too tired to feel great about it.

  He had the grace to look self conscious, but only for a moment. "I missed you."

  She looked at the clock finally, against her will. "Well, Ian, I have to say, three a.m. is a shitty time to figure that out."

  "Especially when you're not alone," he retorted with a twist of his mouth that made it look like he wanted to spit.

  "I don't have to explain myself to you. You made your feelings, or lack of them, very clear to me." She drew herself up. Shoulders straight. Mouth thin. She probably looked like some kind of hardcore bitch, but that was how she felt. Hard fucking core. "But now what? Now you miss me, so you come to me with your dick in your fist, and I'm supposed to just leap for it, mouth open wide?"

  Ian said nothing.

  "You call me at three in the morning because you can't sleep," she cried. "Because you're horny and you're alone, and you have nobody else! That's all!"