by Louisa Trent
“Just about done here,” Sera said, pounding one last tack.
“Me too. If I never get this close to a telephone pole again, I'll die happy.”
When Calia stretched her arms above her head, her fashionable midriff blouse showed a wide expanse of trim waist. “How's about I go get us a couple of sodas from Simpson's Variety across the street?”
“Anything cold sounds great.”
“You're on,” Calia called, already making her away across the busy city traffic.
The young man who had enrolled in five private violin classes a week, starting the first week the school opened, met Calia at the door of the little mom and pop convenience store.
What was Enrico Cortez doing here? Sera wondered. Lately, everywhere Calia was, there was Enrico too.
Sera forgot all about their seemingly coincidental meetings as she started getting her gear together. As result, she wasn't paying attention to what was happening across the street at the store...until she looked up again and saw Enrico make a wild gesture with a hand.
Calia was extraordinarily levelheaded, with a personality that could only be described as sunny and upbeat, and now she looked about to cry.
Sera started paying closer attention to what was happening across the street. Calia was a very sweet young woman and Enrico was a gang member, after all...
After a few minutes, Calia exited the store carrying two cans of soda. Without a glance in Enrico's direction, she returned to where Sera waited.
“Let's drink our sodas on the park bench,” Calia said, obviously upset.
“All right,” Sera agreed. “There's a nice tree there to shade us.”
On the park bench, Sera took a seat beside Calia, who was wiping at her eyes. “I just don't understand Enrico Cortez. He seems so nice and everything, and then, out of nowhere he morphs into this really overbearing and obnoxious jerk.”
“What happened?”
“He said he doesn't like me wearing a shirt that shows my bellybutton. He says it draws attention to me and gives men the wrong impression. He's my age, but he talks just like my father! He's been following me too. Everywhere I go, he's there.”
Sera bit her lip. Looks like Calia had noticed Enrico's strange behavior too. “You mean, like a stalker?”
“Not exactly. More like he's my bodyguard or my chaperone. He's scaring off any guy who comes close. Who says I even want my virtue protected!”
“The virtue part-is that what he said?”
“Not exactly. He said virgins shouldn't wear clothes that show off their bodies. He says only a man who respects me should get to see my body. Do you believe how hopelessly dated he is?” Calia brushed her thick black hair behind an ear. “What right does he have to tell me how I should dress? He's not my boy friend! And even if he was my boyfriend, that wouldn't give him a say in my wardrobe!”
Calia undid the ends of her midriff blouse and tied it even higher on her torso. “There! That's what I think about his fashion advice. It's only a bellybutton. All the girls at school wear shirts like this! You know what I'm going to do? I'm getting my bellybutton pierced. That's what I'm going to do. See what he says then!”
“Men!” Sera offered.
“Men!” Calia countered.
“But you don't think his reason for following you is...well...sinister?
Calia shook her head. “Enrico isn't like that. He's just hopelessly antiquated when it comes to women. And it's so embarrassing that he could tell that I'm a virgin. That's not something I go around broadcasting, not at my age!”
“But you're what—twenty-one?”
Calia sniffed. “Twenty-two!”
“Okay, twenty-two. There are plenty of women that age who are still virgins, Calia! Even older.”
There were even almost thirty-one year old virgins.
Technically, she supposed she wasn't a virgin any longer now that her hymen was gone...
Calia interrupted her thoughts to ask, “As an experienced woman, do you think it's corny that I'm waiting for marriage before I go to bed with a man?”
Sera was a little uncomfortable. Calia was casting her in the light of an experienced woman and she was no more experienced than her much younger teacher. After all, the only experience she'd had was with a candle...
Until illness overtook him, she had never seen her husband nude, nor he her. On their wedding night, Matt came to her bedrooms in his pajamas. At his gentle urging, she kept her nightgown in place as well. They'd prayed together on their knees beside the bed before getting under the covers, at which point her nightgown was raised only as far as her upper thighs, only enough to allow for penetration. Praying aloud, her husband covered her body with his...
And stopped.
No thrust. Nothing...Matt couldn't continue.
While she remained silent, perfectly still, legs straight, arms down by her sides, devastated by what hadn't happened, her husband had quickly withdrawn from her, leaving her bed for his own bedroom. The next day, and for six months afterwards, he had assigned himself penance.
He'd never tried to consummate the marriage again.
She'd loved her husband and he'd loved her, but only as a brother and sister love one another.
She'd needed more. She'd needed sex. But because of the very real pain it caused Matt to succumb to carnality, it was a need she'd kept hidden. She'd learned to live with her hunger for sex, for the need belonged solely to her and had nothing to do with her husband or their marriage.
Oh, she supposed she could've knocked on his bedroom door. Matt would not have turned her away-her husband was not a cruel man. But she never made that long trip down the hall. What woman wants to think of herself as something that must be withstood? As a marital duty? As an occasion of sin?
Sera had only herself to blame. She went into the marriage with eyes wide open. Sex was not part of their agreement. Matt told her he was a celibate, only she hadn't taken him at his word.
Her husband was a good man who had lived his whole life as an austere and pious ascetic, devoted totally to his mission. In embracing a higher plane of spirituality, her husband had forsaken embracing another human being. In releasing his soul from the bondage of his body to seek a more perfect union with the Divine, her husband eschewed corporal pleasures, sex being one of those pleasures.
Desperate to stay on in India after the deaths of her parents, she'd begged him, a fellow missionary, to marry her, and in pity, he had.
After the vows were said, he'd still wanted a platonic relationship. He'd suffered greatly for that one aborted trip to her bed. In five years, he had never returned to her bed and their marriage had remained unconsummated. It was only due to a candle that technically, she was no longer a virgin.
Sera couldn't tell her young and idealistic teacher any of that! She'd never discussed her marriage with anyone!
“I think every woman has to make up her own mind when it's right for her to become intimate with a man,” Sera told Calia instead.
“I've made up mind! I'm saving myself for my husband. I want my wedding night to be the first time. I want it to mean something.”
“It will, Calia. You'll find a man who loves you, who would willingly give up anything and everything for you. And you'll love him so much in return that you'd do the same.”
“It's just that...I don't want Enrico thinking there haven't been opportunities, because there have been opportunities. Or that I'm this completely innocent baby. There have been guys, I just haven't gone all the way with them.” Calia sighed. “I haven't gone any of the way with them. Nothing past kisses.”
“Kissing is good-”
“I've always let guys know, when things start getting serious, that the answer is going to be, no.” Calia turned to Sera, diamonds sparkling in her eyes. “Enrico is awfully cute, don't you think?”
“He's a very good-looking young man.”
“He's intelligent too. A natural leader. He could go places.”
“I'm sure he will, w
hen he's ready.”
Calia undid the knot in her shirt and let the tails cover her tummy. “I suppose he's right; a woman walking around the Southside has to be a little more cautious than a woman walking around a college campus. This is the real world, not some ivy tower in academia.”
“Enrico certainly seems to care about your safety. Caring is an admirable trait in a man.”
“It is, isn't it?” Calia picked up her bag; her expression was dreamy. “Enrico is so much more mature than the college guys I've dated. He's probably had scads of women. He'd never be interested in a know-nothing virgin like me. I'd only bore him. And when he found out the answer is no, he'd lose interest, just like all those college frat house guys lost interest. No one respects a woman's right to wait any more.” She got out her car keys. “I'm going home now, Sera. Thanks for listening.”
Sera drove home too.
Tomas was waiting for her on the driveway when she pulled in. He was one day too late.
Although he had considered her counter offer of sex, and had obviously decided against it, she was still glad to see him. After all, since he hadn't visited her on Monday, she had yet to tell him how grateful she was for all the work he'd done on the house.
“Tomas, I just want to say thank you for everything you've done-”
He waved aside her thanks, then grabbed the supplies out of her arms. “Where were you today?”
Booting the car door closed behind her, he followed her up the stairs into the porch. “I tried calling a coupla times and got no answer.”
“I was canvassing the Southside for new students,” she told him as he opened the screen door for her.
After setting the supplies on the kitchen counter, he turned to her. “Find some?”
“No.”
“I'll have Myra scout around for you.”
“Myra?”
“My office manager. It's sort of her ... um ... hobby to find out things like that about people. Like, for instance, whether or not they'd be interested in taking music lessons “
“How would she find out something like that?”
“Basically, though a combination of brow beating and bullying. It works every time. At least it does with me.” He sighed. “Myra is the closest thing I have to a family. When my old man took off, she sorta took me in. She does that with a lot of strays. Nothing official, ‘cause she doesn't do official and neither do I. She's the toughest woman I ever had the pleasure of knowing. She's been with me from the beginning of Ruiz Construction, even when I couldn't afford to pay her.”
“What a wonderful woman to have so much faith in you!”
“She's something all right.”
He looked at her like a little boy who has something to say but is too shy to speak up. When he finally did speak up, he couldn't seem to look up; Tomas's eyes stayed glued to his work boots.
He shuffled his feet. “I'd like you to meet Myra, and then I'd like to start showing you around. You know, showing you off.”
Confused, and yes, hurt too, she said, “When you didn't visit me on Monday I assumed our agreement was off.”
“It's not off. You told me to think about it and I have.” He seemed to brace himself as he looked into her eyes. “I was a no-show on Monday because I decided against us having sex. Sera, you're too nice for me.”
“What!” she exploded.
“I know you have your womanly needs, the same as a man has his, but I just can't go there with you. Not that way.”
Really, she should wear a sign. She could change a bad boy's reputation from sizzle to fizzle overnight. What on earth was wrong with her?
“I see,” she said, keeping her pride even as she kissed her fantasized sexual adventuring good-bye.
“I don't think you do see.” Tomas rubbed the back of his neck. “The project I'm working on right now is a small condo complex in downtown Fenton. Used to be a run-down warehouse. I bought it for practically nothing, and rather than tear it down, I've been rehabbing it. It's a beautiful piece of property, right on the river. The building is just about completed and later on this week various real estate agents will be giving guided tours through the building, showing display units to prospective buyers. Because it's a luxury complex, all the buyers are wealthy, many are influential in Fenton. Those are just the type of folks I want to have see us together.”
“That's fine, Tomas-
“Wait a minute! Let me spit all of this out before I lose my nerve.”
“I'm sorry for interrupting. Please continue.”
“See! Like that. That's exactly what I mean. You know how to smooth out the tricky bumps in conversation. There's gonna be social occasions that I'll have to attend because they translate into business opportunities. But I get in my own way at formal affairs. Frankly, I suck at the social stuff. I'm outclassed at those kinds of stuffed shirt events and I know it, so my back goes up, and it just makes everything worse.
“Sera, you've got class coming out the...coming out the...uh...See what I mean? I get stuck on those sorts of conversational bumps. That's why I want you with me, at my side, when I meet those people. I need you to give me a swift kick in the pants when I say or do something that's street.”
“I don't know about the pant kicking part but I'll gladly attend those functions with you.”
“Thanks. But see, here's the thing: I don't want to introduce you to those folks as my date because everybody knows what being my date comes down to.”
Her lips quivered. Tomas was such a big and tough man, yet he looked absolutely distraught. “I presume it comes down to sex, Tomas.” Those lucky women.
“Well, yeah. But I don't want folks thinking that way about you. I don't want anyone disrespecting you like that. Which is why I want to introduce you to those stuffed shirts as my wife.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
All muy suave, Tomas reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet box. With a snap of his finger, he released the top to show her the glittering diamond ring inside, the one he'd spent all day yesterday selecting.
“Starting today, I want you to wear this.”
He hadn't set out to buy a ring the day before, which was the Monday he no-showed over at the mansion. It wasn't like his head popped off the pillow that morning and he said to himself, ‘Hmm. Nice day to get engaged'.
Nope, it didn't happen like that. He got up out of bed, hit the can, and got dressed, just like usual. Somehow, though, after flushing and brushing, instead of going down to the site, he found himself wandering around Fenton's jeweler's district. Cruising down the sidewalk, looking in the plate glass windows, just your average Latino guey checking out the 14ct.gold merchandize. Which was way bizarre, since he didn't go in for rings and watches and such. The silver hoops in his ears were all the adornment he wore.
When he happened upon the diamond rings in the display case, that's when the random thought occurred to him that buying Sera an engagement ring was the right thing to do, considering the circumstances and everything.
Sera was a nice respectable lady, and he didn't want her to lose any of that respect, especially not in the eyes of the parents whose kids she wanted to teach. By teaming up with him there was the very real possibility that Sera's good name would be dragged through the mud. It was some pretty selfish thinking on his part to just kiss off her reputation that way.
Then he thought-Why should her good name be sacrificed when there was something he could do about saving it?
Everyone was gonna think he was screwing the missionary lady, whether he was or not, and the good people of Fenton would think less of Sera for allowing it. He could save Sera's reputation by making their association legal, by asking her to marry him. Not that he was a real catch in the marriage market or anything, and not that folks wouldn't think Sera needed to have her head examined for hitching up with him, but at least if they were married, Sera would get to keep her honor, her virtue, in tact.
Old-fashioned words those, honor and virtue. But those two words ca
me to mind when he thought of Sera.
Tomas wanted Sera, and the widow-lady needed sex. Sounded like the ideal combination.
Only it wasn't. And not because being thought a piece of meat offended him. Being considered a cock first, a man second, didn't make him feel cheap or sordid or used. He'd been in Sera's position himself once or twice. There'd been times when he'd needed the comfort of a female body and the woman attached to that body got lost in the need. It wasn't something he was proud of, but there it was. So-as unflattering as it was to be wanted only for his package, he understood.
Understood, but he still wasn't having sex with her.
His ego just couldn't stand up to the comparison to her dead husband.
If Tomas was a gambling man, his bet was that Sera had been a virgin before marriage. Which meant her experience was limited to one man. Sera had loved Matt, and so naturally the sex...the lovemaking...had meant everything to her.
Sera didn't love him, and so it wouldn't be that way for her with him. It wouldn't be special like that.
Tomas wanted special. And if it couldn't be special, at least their association could be honorable.
Which is why he went shopping for the engagement ring.
Then he got tied up at the site and couldn't make it over to her place on Monday night to explain. No wonder why Sera thought he'd changed his mind.
But he had the ring, and that had to mean something.
He didn't want one of those huge-ass, butt-ugly, ostentatious Rock of Gibraltar type of stones. He wanted something that was perfect, no flaws, and of a respectable size. Just like Sera. He wanted tasteful, because Sera was tasteful.
Did she like it?
He couldn't tell.
She said slowly, sounding distant, “I know you want to improve your playboy image in town, but isn't this move rather drastic?”
Figuring Sera for a real stickler when it came to slippery emotions like love, he figured she'd take him to task for presenting marriage as a business proposition. He had to say he was surprised when she didn't use that line of reasoning.