Pleasure for Pleasure

by Jamie Sobrato

  When Josie pulled up to the curb, she spotted a light on in the hallway of the building. She didn’t remember leaving it on, but it wasn’t unusual for Erika to leave a light on at night to discourage burglars. Not that they had anything there worth stealing, Josie mused as she unlocked the front door and locked it again behind her.

  Inside, Eros was nowhere in sight. She slipped off her shoes to avoid frightening him into hiding at the sound of her footsteps on the hardwood floors, then padded quietly down the hallway.

  Her breath caught in her throat when she reached the doorway of the office. There, sitting at the desk, was her mother.

  “Wha—!” Josie shrieked, not even sure what she meant to say.

  Rafaela, who’d had her head bent as she read a document on the desk, started and let out a gasp.

  “What are you doing here?” Josie found the sense to ask.

  “Josephine! You scared me half to death.”

  “Mother! Why aren’t you in Prague?”

  Rafaela leaned back in her chair and placed a hand on her chest, then exhaled noisily. “I decided to come back early, that’s all.”

  “Without telling me? When? How? What happened?” Josie’s mind raced as she sat on the sofa opposite the desk.

  Eros sat perched next to Rafaela, a smug cat smile plastered across his mouth. No one was ever happier to see her than him.

  She noted that her mother looked a little tired and puffy—natural side effects of the long flight back from Prague—but even after such a grueling trip, she was still unmistakably attractive. Her wild curly mane of nearly black hair was pulled back into a thick ponytail at her nape, and her pale skin, barely wrinkled after a lifetime of avoiding the sun, practically glowed in the lamplight. Even on a bad day, her mother could turn heads with her dancer’s figure. And when she set her stunning blue gaze on a man, she could usually be assured he’d fall to his knees.

  Rafaela removed her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I’m afraid things didn’t work out between Peter and me. It was better that I just leave immediately. There was no time to call you.”

  “But when did you get home?” Relief flooded Josie now that she’d recovered from the shock.

  This meant her mother could take over the center again, get business back to normal. It meant Josie could look for another marriage counseling job, and she could call off her lessons with Trent immediately. That was all what she wanted, wasn’t it? Of course it was.

  “I just flew in this evening. I wanted to come by here and check on things. I hadn’t anticipated your showing up and scaring me half to death.”

  “Why didn’t you call me to come pick you up?”

  Rafaela dismissed that idea with the wave of a hand. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  Josie smiled. “That’s silly, but it’s great to have you back. When do you plan to come back to work?”

  Her mother frowned and stroked the cat. “Dear, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to run the center again.”

  “You mean, for a few weeks or so, right?”

  “I mean, ever. I’ve spent a lot of years running this place, and frankly, I’m burnt out. I’d hoped you’d develop an interest in carrying on with the business without me.”

  Josie blinked, and blinked again. This was all wrong. Her mother couldn’t be abandoning the center completely. She’d been working nonstop for three months now, hoping to salvage her mother’s legacy, and for nothing?

  “You can’t just quit!”

  “I’m fifty years old. I’ve earned the right to do whatever I want to do. Even if it means retiring early.”

  “But you’ll get bored. You’ll whither away. You’ll hate retirement.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to work at all. I just don’t intend to run this entire business any longer.”

  Josie slumped back into the couch, the wind knocked out of her. All this time she’d assumed her mother would come back and take over again. And now, the future of the center rested entirely on Josie’s feeble shoulders.

  TRENT STARED at the note, barely legible in Max’s shaky script. MegaBooks had called again about buying the property. “We’re prepared to increase our offer,” the note read, followed by a phone number. The MegaBooks offer was a proposition he’d carefully avoided thinking about in the past few days, as complex as the implications were.

  And now…

  It had been two days since he and Josie had made love. Two days he’d spent examining the emotions that had sprung up in his chest since he’d begun spending time with her. Those emotions had only deepened with their lovemaking. It still seemed impossible that they’d finally done it. All his fantasies paled in comparison to Josie, live in the flesh and in his bed.

  He’d tried to call her after she’d sneaked out of his apartment, but she hadn’t returned his calls. He’d tried to stop by to see her, but she’d always managed to be out.

  Okay, so his revenge plot was pretty much a failure. He had lost his will for it, anyway. It was hard to exact revenge on the woman he was falling for.

  There. He’d let the thought form completely in his brain. He was falling for Josie again. God help him, but he was. Maybe he’d never gotten over his feelings from years ago. That would explain why her rejection of him had hurt so much.

  If he could only figure out what to do with his emotions now. Josie didn’t seem to be interested in anything more than a sexual relationship, but his heart was telling him there was something between them worth exploring.

  All of a sudden the idea of leaving San Francisco and leading adventure tours full-time wasn’t so appealing, if it meant never seeing Josie. He couldn’t even think about the MegaBooks offer without getting a sick feeling in his gut.

  “Dude, you look like you’ve got some deep thoughts rolling around in there,” Max said.

  Trent shook his head. “Just spacing out, that’s all.”

  He tucked the note under the edge of the cash register, then came around the counter and turned his attention back to adjusting the brakes on a mountain bike he’d just sold. The customer was supposed to come back in an hour to pick it up, just as soon as Trent fitted it with the extra equipment the man had bought.

  Max kept staring at him. “Hey, man, you just get laid recently or something?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You been acting like you’ve had your brain fried by a hot piece of ass.”

  Trent tested the brakes. “That’s a classy way of putting it.”

  “Watch out, dude. Let a woman get control of you, you’re a goner.”

  “Thanks for the advice. Now could you go see if that customer needs help?” Trent nodded at a teenager near the front of the store.

  “Already checked. He’s just looking.”

  “Then how about you go restock water bottles or wander out into traffic or something?”

  “Man, you are whipped, aren’t you?” Max grinned and took a seat on the counter, settling in to annoy Trent some more.

  Trent scowled at him. “Last time I checked, you didn’t exactly have women lined up to take control of your life.”

  “Hey, at least I admit I’m a fool for women. But I’m twenty-two years old. What guy my age isn’t?”

  “I see, and as an old geezer of thirty years, I should have all women figured out by now.”

  “You shouldn’t have that whipped look in your eyes—that’s all I’m saying.”

  Trent bit his lip, unable to think of a smart-ass comeback. How had he, in a matter of days, gone from having his life under complete control to looking so pitiful that even Max, who was normally about as perceptive as a rock, could see there was something wrong?

  Josie Marcus had walked back into his life—that’s what had gone wrong.

  As if on cue, someone walked into the store. Trent looked up to see Josie. In a sort of lavender-colored suit, with her wild, wavy hair pulled back into some kind of professional woman’s hairdo, she looked like every man’s boardroom fantasy
, the sex-pot CEO.

  “Max, get lost.”

  The store clerk eyed him, then Josie, with interest as she made her way down the aisle toward them. “Ah, so she’s the one,” he said in a stage whisper.

  Trent glowered and Max got the message. He hopped off the counter and disappeared into the stockroom just as Josie stopped on the other side of the mountain bike. She stared down at Trent as he kneeled on the floor, making one last adjustment to the brakes. When he finished, he stood and officially acknowledged her presence for the first time.

  She smiled tentatively. “I know my timing is awful, but we need to talk about the other night.”

  It’s about time.

  “How about we go for a walk?” he said.

  Josie nodded, and Trent called to the back for Max. When the clerk appeared in the doorway of the stockroom, Trent said, “I’ll be back in a little while. Can you take care of everything until I get back?”

  “No problem, man,” Max answered. When Josie turned toward the front door, he eyed her and smiled, then nodded knowingly.

  Outside they made a left and walked toward the Pacific, which was more than twenty blocks away. It could still be seen on high ground, though, glinting in the distance. And the smell of it always permeated the air. Trent couldn’t think of many things he loved more than the scent of the ocean.

  “So…” Josie said, clearly hesitant to dive into a discussion of their newfound sexual relationship.

  “So.” Trent didn’t intend to let her off the hook easily after she’d snuck out of his bed without saying goodbye.

  “Did you know my mother is back from Prague?”

  “Rafaela’s here?”

  Trent went numb at the thought that his sex lessons with Josie could be over for good.

  “She showed up unannounced the other night, claiming things didn’t work out between her and Peter.”

  “I guess that solves all your problems, then,” Trent said.

  “Actually, everything is worse now than I thought. My mother doesn’t want to run the center at all anymore!”

  “She expects you to run it from now on?” His imagination automatically conjured the idea of a permanent sex-lessons-for-rent trade.

  “Yes, and she’s crazy. I’m awful at running that place.”

  “You seem to be doing pretty well with a business that was in near ruins when you took it over.”

  “It’s still in near ruins—you call that doing pretty well?”

  “You’re not giving yourself credit. And maybe Rafaela will stick around as an advisor.”

  Josie frowned. “Maybe, but she’ll have to advise someone else.”

  Trent shrugged. “Your decision.”

  They fell into an awkward silence as they waited for a light to change so they could cross a street. Trent forced himself not to make small talk, to force Josie to address the subject they were dancing around. The light turned green and they crossed the street.

  She finally spoke up. “I just want you to know, I’m sorry for what happened the other night. I should never had tied you to the chair and…and—”

  Trent interrupted, his gut clenching at the thought that she considered the night an unfortunate accident. “It’s not like you forced me. I was a consenting adult.”

  “But still, I feel like I coerced you.” She watched her feet as she walked. “I hope this doesn’t cancel our professional arrangement.”

  “You mean, the sex lessons?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would it? Like you said, I’ll never learn anything without hands-on experience.” Trent was careful to keep his voice free of emotion.

  “That’s true, I guess.”

  “You just helped me get past that hang-up I had, my fear of performing for you,” he lied.

  Josie nodded. “Yes, you seem to have overcome the performance anxiety right away.”

  Oops. Maybe if he hadn’t been crazy with desire, he could have put on more of an act, but Josie had made acting difficult, if not impossible.

  “Let’s just say your, uh, lesson was exactly what I needed.”

  “Good, I’m glad.” She paused, seeming to search for the right words. “And I’m sorry I slipped out without saying goodbye afterward.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I just woke up and…it seemed like the next morning could be awkward, us being student and teacher. It seemed like it would be unprofessional for me to spend the night, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Trent resisted pointing out that their entire arrangement was the polar opposite of professional.

  “No big deal,” he lied.

  “I should have left a note.”

  “Maybe a little evaluation sheet, with grades for performance and effort.”

  Josie smiled. “A-plus-plus.”

  “For performance, or effort?”

  “Both. You hardly seemed like you needed sex lessons.”

  “I’ve got a great instructor.”

  She laughed. “So we’re still on for next week?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you’ll still help me with the business assessment and the weekend retreat?”

  Trent stopped walking and placed a hand on her arm. “We have a deal, and I won’t break it.”

  “I’m so glad you’re okay with all this. The center would be financially ruined for sure without our arrangement.” She stood on tiptoe and placed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you so much!”

  “No problem.”

  “I have to get back to the center. So I’ll see you next Tuesday.” She was walking backward, getting farther away from him now. She lifted her hand to wave, and when he nodded she turned and walked away.

  Trent stood alone on the sidewalk, suddenly aware of the salty fish smell coming from the sushi joint on his left. He watched Josie’s retreating form, and with each step she took, the knot in his gut grew bigger.

  Would Josie always retreat from him? Was she incapable of doing anything else? Would she ever have slept with him if not for financial necessity? Part of him wanted to hang around long enough to find out. Another part suddenly wanted to tell MegaBooks he was ready to accept their offer.

  9

  HEAVEN HELP HER, Josie was turning into her mother.

  Her old fear came surging back, stronger than ever, only this time she knew it was completely warranted. She was capable of losing control, of letting her passions rule her, of letting desire for a particularly sexy man control her life.

  She gnawed on a pen, staring at the syllabus in front of her. She’d written it up the day Trent had made his offer of trading sex lessons for the rent. At the time the solution had seemed ideal. Half crazed by her lack of a sex life, she’d designed every lesson to give herself plenty of opportunities to get Trent into bed for hands-on practice.

  She saw now that she’d been doing the kinds of things she’d always disliked Rafaela doing. Chasing after men, thinking constantly about sex, letting her libido guide her decision-making… Was this kind of behavior genetically passed down from mother to daughter?

  Suddenly the sex-heavy lessons she’d devised didn’t seem like such a fabulous idea. She just wasn’t cut out for casual sex.

  She tried to close her mind’s eye to the events of their last lesson, but every time she let her guard down, the erotic images replayed themselves over and over again in her mind. Her brain had become an X-rated movie theater.

  She couldn’t even recall why she’d thought she could pull off seducing Trent without a hitch. She’d let pure desperation blind her to the inevitable aftereffects.

  She was no better than her mother. The thought filled her with the urge to change her name and move to Peru, perhaps to join an order of contemplative nuns.

  Ah, but if she dwelled on thoughts of Trent for more than a few seconds, her entire body awakened to desire again.

  Eros awoke from his favorite spot atop the leather sofa and came trotting over to the desk. He’d developed such a liking for living
at the center, Rafaela had decided to leave him there until she could get the carpets in her condo cleaned. She claimed he always freaked out and hid in the closet for days after the carpet-cleaning men came with their noisy steam cleaners and she wanted to save him the trauma.

  In one smooth, feline leap Eros positioned himself right in front of Josie on the desktop. And in an unprecedented show of friendliness, he began to purr in deep rumbles and to butt his head up against Josie’s face. She sneezed and tried to pick the cat hair out of her mouth discreetly enough so as not to offend him.

  “Does this mean you like me now?” Josie ran her hand along his silky back, but he ducked away from her touch.

  When someone knocked on the office door, he bolted and disappeared under the sofa.

  Josie blinked at the cat’s odd behavior, then called for her visitor to come in.

  Erika poked her head inside the doorway. “You have a few minutes to talk?”

  Josie glanced down at the calendar on her desk, with its column of empty lines for Thursday. “Uh, sure.”

  Erika stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. Today she was wearing lots of crushed velvet and gold jewelry, complete with sandals that wound their way up her calves, and toe rings on several toes.

  “Please, have a seat.” Josie motioned to a chair across from her, but Erika had already flopped into it before she could finish the sentence. “What’s up?”

  “We need to talk about my future here at the center.”

  “Is something wrong? You know you have a job here as long as we’re in business.”

  “I don’t want to be a receptionist forever.” Erika crossed her arms over her chest and flashed Josie a look of challenge.

  “I’ve learned a lot from Rafaela over the years, and I think I should get a chance to contribute something more than my phone-answering skills to this business.”