As she stood at the window, dithering over which door to open, Max…yes, it was definitely him...settled it by striding briskly toward the front door. Scampering to the door, Kari managed to get there first, throwing it wide and calling out, “Max?” though it wasn’t really a question at this point.
There was an awkward moment when he got to the front door. She wanted to throw her arms around him...yet, she’d never met him face to face before, and it seemed odd hugging a “stranger.” Yet, surely, this man was no stranger. They’d shared wishes, shared secrets, shared sex talk on the phone.
Max, for his part, seemed just as unsure of his next move. He stood there, seeming hesitant, finally asking, “Kari?”
“Of course it’s me! Come in!” And he did, putting his suitcase down in the middle of the room and letting her put her arms around him. After a barely perceptible beat, he responded, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close to him.
The thickness of his coat came between them, and she resented its intrusion, its presence between her hungry body and the body she yearned to feel against her. How would she get to know the shape and feel, the texture and strength of her new lover’s physicality, if all these damn layers of material got in the way? “Take this off.” It was almost more a command than a suggestion. At very least, it was a request.
Max removed the coat, and Kari took it to hang it up. But she ate up the sight of him before turning her back to go to the closet. He had a body that had known exercise, a body that in no way but the slightest swell of belly betrayed his love of good food. Kari had imagined him more rotund despite the photo she had of him, which clearly showed he didn’t share her weight problem.
When she turned back to him, after hanging the coat away, she found him looking at her intently. “Do I look like you pictured me?” she asked.
“No one ever does,” he answered very quickly.
“Let me put your suitcase upstairs.”
“It’ll wait,” Max said. Then, after a minute. “Well, at least let me carry it up the stairs myself. And I can see the rest of the house while I’m at it.”
Kari proudly gave him the grand tour, pausing at the computer to point out where she got his email and wrote back to him. Upstairs, she actually blushed on leading him into the bedroom. She had a guest room upstairs, too, though she barely gave him time to stick his head in the door. She seldom spent any time in there, herself, except to browse among her bookcases, which were in there. And these days, her own life was so exciting that novels bored her by comparison.
“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” Kari said when they’d got back downstairs. “You have time for a drink first.”
“Good idea!” Max said, accepting a scotch and soda and producing the smoked oysters he’d promised. Kari, feeling unaccountably nervous, clinked her glass against his so hard that she nearly knocked it out of his hand. She said, “To us.”
Max took a deep breath, then clinked her glass in return, toasting, “To happiness.
“So, how long have you lived here now?” Max asked, and they settled into a comfortable conversation about safe subjects...houses, hometowns, nothing too intimate. Kari was surprised to find that it felt like she was getting to know Max all over again. She had thought when he walked in her door, it would feel to her like a long-lost lover had come home. Instead, there was this newness, this awkwardness, this strangeness. And from the stiff, halting quality his conversation fell into intermittently, she sensed he was feeling it too.
They finished their drinks just as Kari decided dinner was ready. She lit the candles on the table, turned down the lights, and cheerily sang out, “Dinner’s on.” Then, as Max seated himself, she carried the food to the table. “Will you carve?” she asked. “I’m so inept at it, it’s pathetic.”
“It’s not exactly my forte either, my dear,” Max said. It was the first time he had called her “my dear” since arriving. The familiar words made her feel better.
“We’ll have chopped chicken if I do it,” she warned him, so he carved, doing a passable job of it, and the two of them sat to eat. Grateful for the food as an excuse not to have to make conversation, they did little talking.
Kari was pleased; everything had turned out perfectly—the chicken, the stuffing, the veggies, the potatoes. Max put away seconds and, in the case of the chicken and the stuffing, thirds. Kari marveled that his figure didn’t betray his appetite.
She opened her mouth to ask, “How do you eat so much and stay so trim?” then thought better of it. It might bring up the subject of her girth, and she didn’t want to discuss the subject of weight with him yet.
He helped her clear the table and offered to help with the dishes. “You’ve been driving for four hours,” she told him. “I’ll load the dishwasher and be done with it. If you want to shower...?”
“Good idea,” he said. He already had used the upstairs bathroom while she was showing him the house, so he knew where it was and went up while she finished tidying up after dinner. She rushed, and he was still in the shower when she got upstairs. Good! She slipped into her negligee, anxiously peering into the mirror to see how much of her size it betrayed. She finally decided that there was no hiding the fact she was fat, but that at least the negligee didn’t emphasize that fact.
To be safe, though, she got in bed and pulled the covers up to just below her breasts. She turned off the lamp on his side, leaving just her lamp lit. She’d turn that one out soon enough—when he’d had a chance to appreciate the negligee—and then she’d make love to him in the dark.
He emerged from the bathroom naked. His organ betrayed no eagerness, but Kari knew she would soon fix that. As he sat on the edge of the bed, she kissed his bare and slightly freckled back. He leaned back toward her. “I’ve waited a long time for this,” she throatily told him. Her flickering lips worked their way up to his shoulder.
Max swung around, got his legs up on the bed, and got under the covers with Kari. The aggressor, she ran one hand fervently up and down his chest, appreciating the absence of many hairs; only a light sprinkling forested his upper body. She looked at his face, so much more handsome than in his photo, and her heart smiled.
Turning his head, Max caught her square on the lips. At first his kiss felt cool, but gradually, it grew more ardent. Kari returned the kiss with a hunger born of long anticipation. Max’s lips parted, bearing her lips with them. His tongue snaked into her mouth, exploring within as if he had never insinuated his tongue in a mouth before and was in uncharted territory.
Probing, parrying, he met her tongue and slithered around it. She fervently pressed her considerable body against his, no longer concerned whether he saw, felt, or cared about her girth. Giving herself to him, she wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled him tight to her straining body, her lower parts pressing against his. She was gratified to feel his male organ uncurling, stiffening, pressing against her insistently. She welcomed the urgent pressure as she would welcome him into her shortly.
He put his hand on her derriere, pulling her to him even tighter. Their bodies ground together, a circular motion that propelled them into greater degrees of desire. She undulated against him, mimicking the motions of lovemaking without entry. His organ, lodged between them, swelled impossibly large and rigid.
Surrendering to a shiver, Kari took the lead again and wrapped her hand around his impressively rigid, yet spongy, organ. Max slipped a hand inside the top of her negligee and palmed her nipple. Another, stronger shiver raced through her, and she thrust her breasts out, pushing her nipple against his palm. Stroking her aureole tenderly, Max set off fire flashes in her secret chasm.
“I don’t need any more foreplay,” Kari finally gasped. “I can’t wait. Take me now.”
He was rigid; he was ready; he yanked the negligee off her as she switched off the bedside lamp, suddenly conscious of her figure again. Max rolled atop her, his firm body pressing down on her jiggly, cushy body. Their intimate organs met, and hers enveloped
his. He slid into her, and she welcomed him home. When he started to pull back, she tightened up as if to prevent him from rocking inside her. Circling with his hips, he stirred inside her without pulling back.
“My Max, my man, my lover.” She had meant to murmur the endearments, but in her urgent need, and with him now pounding in and out, above her and in her, the words came out in emphatic spasms, and in more of a shout than a whisper.
She grasped his buttocks, firmly urging him to move faster. He was holding back, restraining himself, but she was eager, needful. It wasn’t long before they were slamming their bodies together, racing toward a fiery finale. His sweat-wet flesh slapped noisily against her own drenched skin as he ratcheted in and out of her womanly chasm. She raised her legs, held her feet to his buttocks, and urged him into even faster motions with her heels, pressing them into the tautened muscles of his butt.
A swift climax was inevitable. Kari would have liked to prolong the lovemaking, but she had no more will power for postponing the satisfaction she sought than she had will power for avoiding the foods that tempted her. And once she let go, her body stiffening in the rigid throes of the most spectacular fulfillment available to humankind, Max let go too and joined her in a loud, thrashing, straining, eye-rolling finish to their coupling.
Panting, she clung to him, ardently pressing her grateful lips to his. His lips pulled back from hers, and he kissed her nose. She purred. “Sweet Kari,” he said. “Thank you.” He rolled off her, draping one arm proprietarily across her waist. She nestled into the crook of his other arm, murmuring of inconsequential matters in an earnest tone. She had given herself to him fully now. She was his. She felt she had sealed their togetherness when his maleness slid into her sheath.
Max’s eyes kept closing. He struggled to stay awake, but he kept nodding off. “You’ve had a long day,” Kari soothed, “and a long drive. Maybe we should go to sleep now.”
“Sounds good,” Max mumbled, sitting up to make one last foray into the bathroom. He reached for the lamp to light his way in the unfamiliar house, knocking it over in the dark. Fortunately, nothing broke. Kari turned her lamp on. Swiftly slipping out of bed, she hurried into the guest room, found the nightlight she kept for guests who were unfamiliar with the house’s geography, and plugged it into a socket in her bedroom.
“Now, if you have to get up in the middle of the night, you won’t kill yourself,” she said. Max returned to bed, kissed Kari, and fell asleep almost before he was stretched out. In the glow of the nightlight, Kari propped herself up on one elbow and studied Max. He was here. He was in her house, her bedroom, her bed. He was in her life, really in her life, not just by email, but here, right here, in the flesh...and what wonderful flesh it was.
Somehow Kari, too, settled down into the bed without ever being conscious of lying down, and in a moment she, too, was asleep. But all through the night she kept waking up, feeling his form beside her, cuddling up to him. Each time she awakened, she draped an arm or a leg across him as if to ensure he wouldn’t slip away while she slept again.
She woke up early again the next morning with a feeling there was a reason to get up. At first, she didn’t remember what the reason was. They had rolled apart again, and she didn’t immediately realize she had company in the bed.
It wasn’t a workday, was it? Was she due in at Larrimore’s headquarters early? Kari struggled to wake up and grasp what the need was for getting up early. Then, Max stirred, and Kari felt the bed move. Instantly, she remembered, and her eyes flew open to behold the sleeping figure of the man...her man...in her bed.
Reaching over, she kissed him, not even caring what time it was or whether she was waking him needlessly early. He stirred, and she sat up, bent low, and kissed him on a part that had been asleep till she started kissing. It stirred, waking less sluggishly than Max himself, responding to her even while Max was still struggling to come to consciousness and recognize his surroundings.
Kari made long, sweet oral love to Max, and then he returned the favor. They curled up together and went back to sleep, and the sun rose long before they did. Kari made breakfast, though Max declined to eat half of what she put in front of him. “My god, that’s enough for a lunch...or a dinner!” he protested, despite her insistence that it was Saturday, and a special Saturday at that.
He was an amateur photographer—a fact she hadn’t known before this—and he brought along his camera when she took him for a drive. “I want you to know Jeffersonville as well as you know Elm Ridge,” she told him, driving him around and pointing out sites of local interest as well as sites with personal meaning for her. He took photos of picturesque spots, interesting people, and more than one dog. “Hey! Take some of me!” Kari squealed.
They drove past Larrimore’s headquarters. A couple of the volunteers she knew were out front. She waved as she passed, but they were talking animatedly and didn’t notice her. She wondered if something had happened that she’d want to know about, like another load of flyers gone missing, or somebody figuring out what had happened to the previous ones, or the speech. She was still sure of Jeff’s innocence, despite his admission of flawed honesty.
She and Max had lunch in a restaurant, then caught a matinee at the movie theatre. “Let’s have dinner early,” he said when they emerged from the theatre at 3:30. This raised the prospect in her mind of a long evening of lovemaking, so she eagerly assented and pointed the car toward home.
They prepared dinner together. She made beef stroganoff—so sinful, with its sour cream, but so good. He made string beans dijonnaise and a salad. Kari threw some noodles into water when the stroganoff was nearly ready.
Dinner was delicious. This time, there was more conversation, though Kari noticed she was doing most of the talking. Again, Max helped clear and offered to help with the dishes, and again, Kari declined, saying that with the dishwasher, she was fine. Max left the room, and she thought she heard him treading up the stairs. She smiled, supposing he was showering for her.
When she finished in the kitchen, she walked around the corner into the living room. Max was sitting on the sofa, his coat beside him, his suitcase by the door. Kari stopped, cemented to the spot where she stood. “What—why...? Are you leaving? Don’t go!” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. “Are you leaving?” was a stupid question with his suitcase and coat in evidence, and the “Don’t go!” had sounded like begging.
“I think it’s better this way,” Max said in a low, sincere, insistent voice.
“What’s the problem?” Kari asked.
“This just isn’t right,” Max said. And then, when he saw she wouldn’t be content with that gloss of an answer, “I’m not comfortable with...you weren’t honest with me. If you’d hide your weight problem, pretend you didn’t have one, then I don’t know what else you’d be dishonest about. I’m not...I’m not comfortable. Honesty is important to me.”
No it isn’t. But my weight is. She didn’t say it aloud, but it was as obvious to her as the stomach that protruded in front of her eyes when she looked down.
Max kissed her chastely—and quickly—on the forehead. “Goodbye, Kari. Thanks for...everything.” Then, he took his suitcase in hand and walked out without looking back.
Kari watched forlornly as the headlights receded down the driveway. It was only 6:30. She drifted over to the computer, turned away again at the memory of all the email that had led to...this, then pivoted once again and returned to the machine. She wasn’t going to let Max drive her away from her other email friends.
Logging on, she found a letter from a woman named Bobbi, one of her newest pen pals. Kari had met Bobbi after answering an inquiry Bobbi had posted about a recipe. They were newish friends, but Bobbi’s was the only letter waiting for Kari, and the incident with Max was burning Kari’s consciousness, so Bobbi got to hear the whole story.
As she poured it out at the keyboard, Kari veered around from desolate to angry. The more she wrote to Bobbi of what had happened, the angrier she b
ecame till she had built up a solid wall of passionate anger to protect herself from loneliness and an aching heart.
When she logged off, it was still early. She turned on the TV, but she couldn’t find anything engrossing on any channel, so she turned it off again and locked up downstairs, then went upstairs in search of a good book. She took an as-yet-unread mystery from her bookshelf, curled up in bed, and read. But as the book’s mystery deepened, it made her think more and more of the hanky-panky at Larrimore’s headquarters. Now there was a mystery! Finally, Kari put the book aside, turned out the light, and just lay in bed trying to puzzle out who might be behind all the goings-on, and why.
Now her mind kept slipping gears, jumping from one situation to another. The dark of night is when problems are most bothersome, and Kari’s bedside lamp did little to dispel her personal demons. Her thoughts drifted from Jeff to Max to Steve and back to Max again.
The central problems seemed to be sex and her weight. If not for her weight, Max would be here in her bed right now. If not for Marcy’s weight, Jeff would have dated Marcy...and not fallen several notches down the ladder of Kari’s esteem.
If not for Steve’s sexual hunger, Kari’s best friend’s husband would never have made a pass at her. And had her own sexual hunger clouded Kari’s judgment or colored her opinion of Max? Was her sexual appetite, like her stomach’s appetite, one that overwhelmed logic and clouded reason? Had her attraction to Max been too heavily based on physical need?
She rolled over, as if facing the other direction would get her away from her problems. Indeed, as she flopped around in the bed, she managed to momentarily dispel thoughts of Max. But the void they left was quickly occupied by the mystery again. Not the one in the novel she’d put down, but the very real life mystery of the skullduggery at the election headquarters.
MacGregor, Cynthia - An Appetite for Passion (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 13