The Naked Truth

by Leslie Morgan

  Instead, around nine thirty, I was listening to Bella chatter in the TT’s backseat as I drove down Walnut Street when my phone lit up with a text message.

  Stopped at the next light (no texting and driving!), I checked the screen. The message was from an area code I didn’t recognize. It read, simply, Do you want to have a drink?

  I had no idea whom the invitation was from. I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman. Maybe someone I’d given my card to at the party?

  If this person had my cell phone, surely a drink with them would be fun. Why not? I still had on my (now wrinkled) black skirt, cutout heels, and camisole. I didn’t even have to change.

  I played along.

  Sure. Where are you?

  Rittenhouse Square. A few blocks from your house.

  Who could it be? If mystery texter knew where I lived, it had to be someone I liked and actually would want to serve a drink to.

  Idling in the driveway as Bella walked to Marty’s brownstone door, I texted back: Why don’t you come by in 30 minutes? I purposefully did not give my address. You know, safety first.

  My anonymous date, who apparently already knew my address, texted back a simple See you then.

  * * *

  The doorbell rang a few minutes before ten, the chime echoing deep into the house. I’d lit a half dozen fat white candles in front of the fireplace. A bottle of chilled, sweating Perrier and another of white wine sat on the glass coffee table.

  I took a breath before opening the door. I couldn’t wait to see who it was.

  On my brick doorstep stood Jake, grinning in the lamplight, towering over me, his spiky hair GQ messy, looking almost exactly as he did at sixteen when picking me up at my parents’ house. His eyes, ice blue under the light of my chandelier, met mine. His eyes always reminded me of an Alaskan husky, radiating intelligence and the drive you need to pull a sled across the arctic tundra.

  “Hey!” I tried to hide my surprise. “Wow. So nice you could come by.” That much was true.

  “Glad it worked out,” he said, sidestepping into my foyer, his hands deep in the pockets of a scuffed chocolate-brown suede jacket, slightly distressed to the edge of hipness.

  “Come on in.” I put my hands out for his blazer. I was tempted to sniff it, to see if he still smelled like Eau Sauvage, the cologne he used in high school.

  We went into the living room and sat next to each other on the red, gold, and blue silk couch Marty and I had shipped back from a tiny Italian furniture shop we’d found in Lake Como on our honeymoon. I made sure to sit a few inches from Jake, which was hard on the slippery tufted love seat, especially because ex–basketball players have legs like ladders. I was afraid if my pantyhose slid up against his jeans, he might think I was hitting on him. I didn’t want to be that girl from high school, drooling over her old boyfriend long after he’d moved on to New York women with stick-straight hair and thinner thighs.

  “Wine?” I asked, gesturing to the bottle.

  “Sure,” he said, leaning forward to get it himself, since he knew I didn’t drink.

  We talked for two hours, the conversation zipping from topic to topic. Mostly about the new movie, his mom, film parties, life in New York, my kids, his dog Jennie, and random friends from high school. When I asked about his girlfriend, he looked away.

  “That ended a few months ago. I’m pretty sure she cheated on me a bunch of times. Not a happy subject,” he said, by way of opaque dismissal. I didn’t press, even though I was thinking, Who the hell would be stupid enough to cheat on a guy like Jake?

  The painted French clock on my fireplace mantel showed it was almost midnight. We’d run out of questions to ask each other. Jake stirred, as if he was about to get up and ask for his jacket. I started craving my sheets again.

  Jake wiped his palms on his jeans. Then, instead of getting up and saying good-bye, he put his left hand over my right one on the couch. I stared at the dark hairs above his knuckles. His palm was warm and rough, and covered my hand completely.

  He met my surprised gaze and said, “I don’t know whether to say good night, or to kiss you.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Jake wanted to kiss me? After all this time?

  “Oh, Jake, that’s easy,” I answered without taking a breath. “You should definitely kiss me.”

  “Leslie, I’ve wanted to do this for the past thirty years,” he told me, taking my face in his palms.

  His words, and his eyes like gray-blue granite, made me melt inside.

  With my own eyes closed, I waited for him to follow through.

  * * *

  So, first, I have to tell you about the sex. The sex with Jake. Prepare yourself.

  Back when we’d dated in high school, Jake had been a sixteen-year-old, 145-pound virgin, as inexperienced as he was tall and skinny. By contrast, I was a seventeen-year-old sex aficionado who’d been sneaking out of my parents’ house for three years to drink, smoke weed, and explore my nascent sexuality with an assortment of older boyfriends. I never thought of my behavior as slutty. I liked boys and I liked sex and I liked the two together. And I used birth control every single time, dammit.

  But despite his tentativeness, Jake had been inherently, undeniably talented sexually, driven by intuition rather than experience. One night he stole the key to his father’s law firm office and we snuck in after hours to have a place to get naked. I undid my shirt slowly after he got flustered with the buttons. He slipped his hands around my waist, buried his head in the V of my bra, and let out a sigh so deep and drawn out, it sounded like he’d been holding his breath for sixteen years.

  Surrounded by yellow legal pads and maroon tax code binders, he put his soft lips on my breasts with a kind of reverence my more experienced boyfriends lacked. I remember the feeling like it was yesterday. His lips were warm and soft, and he circled my areola with his tongue over and over. The way his tongue moved made me cry out in his dad’s office, and the memory of it drove me crazy. I’m sure it drove him crazier. But as I said before, I was reluctant to be his first lover, because I knew, from losing my own virginity, how intense an experience it was. I wasn’t ready to lead someone else through that jungle. I broke up with him after about eight weeks of dating and unforgettable kissing.

  So, that night in my living room, it felt like we’d been waiting three decades to come together physically. It was sex unlike any other in my life. But I’m ahead of myself.

  First, we kissed for a bit on the couch, sloppy, crazy kissing, like we were trying to devour each other’s faces. For a few minutes, I thought that’s all we were going to do. Then Jake slipped his hand inside my bra. He gently tweaked my nipple as if he knew exactly how to touch me, even after all these years. An erotic jolt blasted through me. So much for stopping at kissing.

  A few minutes later, I stood up. I slipped out of my skirt, pantyhose, camisole, and bra. I faced Jake, naked.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He looked me up and down. I hoped the candlelight hid the cellulite on my thighs and the fact that my breasts hung at least three inches lower than the last time he’d seen them.

  “Wow.” The word came out of his mouth as a low sigh, almost as if he were in pain.

  He stood up and kissed me again with a ceremonious air, putting a hand on each of my shoulders. Then Jake slowly bent down, unlaced his boots, and slipped them off. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall open. The lighting was dim, but I caught a glimpse of the ripples of his strong abs and the dark brown hairs encircling his belly button. Next, he unbuckled his leather belt and undid his jeans snap. He slipped his pants and boxers off, and left them in a pyramid on the floor, stepping out toward me, barefoot and naked. I was afraid to look up. His feet were tan from summer, with a few dark hairs on each toe. His calves were still enormous, bulging out from behind his shinbones. Each thigh had a large X carved by the muscles above his knee. I looked away; was it really okay to look north of his thighs? He let his shirt fall on top of his jeans. He stood
up to face me, as naked as I was.

  “Hi,” he said. He put his large, cool hands on my waist.

  I’d never seen him without clothes on.

  “Wow,” I whispered back to him, finally looking up and taking in the sight of his huge erect cock. I reached out both my hands and slipped them over the velvety head of his dick. He leaned back and groaned. I dropped to my knees and put my mouth over him, and sucked gently. His cock throbbed in response. I could feel the skin stretching taut as he stiffened between my lips. Looking up at his face, I sucked harder.

  The candles flickered and burned down as we made love for over three hours. At first, the aura between us felt as if I were finally initiating him into sex, at long last taking his virginity. But to my surprise, it also felt like he was doing the same to me. As if neither of us had ever truly experienced the magic of sexual intimacy before. We tried every position and combination of activities I knew already, plus a few I didn’t. Consent was a new addition to lovemaking since we’d been in high school. Jake whispered, “Do you want me inside you, Leslie?” Yes. We used the ottoman by the fire. “Do you want me to make love to you like this?” Yes. He bent me over a narrow embroidered couch. Yes. He lay me down on my back on the Bijar carpet. Yes. We abused tasteful furnishings that, for nearly two decades of elegant cocktail parties for 150 in that house, I’d never once imagined serving as props for wild, hard-core sex.

  The net effect was as if Jake had spent the years since high school studying the way women’s anatomy worked, in anticipation of applying every lesson to me. And as if I’d spent thirty years getting wet, waiting for him to knock on my door to show me what he’d learned. Plus, because we already knew each other so well, there was none of that first-fuck awkwardness to slow us down.

  At all.

  When we were finally spent, we walked slowly through the backyard holding hands, past the mermaid statue by the hot tub, and I drove him home in the TT. We kissed good-bye in front of Penny and Jim’s building in the 3:00 a.m. stillness. All I could think was: I want more of this. Despite our hours making love, I felt like the audience at a Rolling Stones concert, standing and clapping for one more encore. Even at that moment, I believe I knew I’d never get enough of the sweet sensation of being twisted open by Jake Bryant’s hands on me and his cock inside me.

  * * *

  The next morning, only about four hours after I dropped Jake off in the middle of the night, I was up, bleary-eyed but blissed out, scrambling eggs and getting the kids ready for school. Marty had dropped them off at seven, still in their pajamas, because he had an early flight to Chicago for work. I had scratchy Persian-rug burns on my knees and upper back. My hair was mussed by sex and sleep. I waved good-bye to Timmy and Bella at the front door and crawled back into bed. Thank goodness I was a writer with a flexible schedule.

  When Jake called around noon, I was still asleep. He left a message. I listened to it in bed, thinking how much I wanted him there next to me, right then.

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  His voice sounded as husky and sweet as it had long ago, when we saw each other at school every day and talked on the phone every night.

  “I’m calling you like a gentleman, to thank you for a wonderful night,” Jake said on my voice mail. “I was kept awake all night with visions of your perfect body and your awesome beautiful blonde hair and . . . how great it felt.” His voice dropped an octave. “How great it felt to be with you. Finally. It was . . . amazing. So . . . I’ll talk to you soon, I hope.”

  I listened to the message three times, my stomach unzipping each time I heard his voice.

  I picked Bella up from school and told her I’d meet her inside the house after I parked. I sat in the TT in the back alley with the windows rolled up. I slipped off my clogs and put my stocking feet on the dashboard. My fingers were cold and stiff, like I’d been holding ice cubes. I took a bunch of deep breaths and dialed Jake’s number.

  Jake answered after one ring. His voice sounded scratchy, like he was clearing his throat.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said, as eager and nervy as a kid on the day the neighborhood pool opened for the summer. “I got your message.”

  There was no point in holding back. Honesty still came easily to us. He’d cracked me open, and it felt safe to be transparent about how I felt.

  “I had a great time last night, too, Jake. One of the best nights of my life.”

  “Oh, Leslie, you have no idea.”

  His voice made the tension drain out of me, like water swirling down the bathtub plug. I had been afraid he’d pull back, saying once was enough, that despite our passionate sexual connection and history, this was just another one-time thing. God, I craved being wanted for more than one night, especially by this handsome, intelligent, kind man I’d known since I was seventeen. This, of course, scared the hell out of me. It felt like way too much to hope for.

  “So when do you head back to New York?” I asked as casually as I could, ignoring the catch in my gut. Last night, Jake had said he had a train that afternoon.

  “Not until tomorrow,” he answered, taking me by surprise.

  My heart felt as if I’d tripped and caught myself before falling.

  “Well, why don’t you come over again tonight?” I spat out, before Mom’s voice stopped me, chastising that a lady never chases a man.

  “Um, well, um, I actually have plans.”

  I prayed he was being honest and not evasive.

  I held my breath. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six. I counted in my head, forcing myself to let the silence talk for me. Please please please.

  “Ah, I’ll cancel. Of course I’ll cancel. Jeez, what was I thinking. What time are you free?”

  I fell back into the driver’s seat, my armpits sweaty. I didn’t feel cold anymore.

  * * *

  That night, I met him at the door.

  “Sorry about my outfit,” I said, gesturing to my mom uniform of black stretchy V-neck and yoga pants. “Bella’s at the movies. I have to pick her up in three hours.”

  “I forgive you,” Jake said. “Because you’re not going to have those clothes on very long.”

  He put his hands around my waist and pulled me toward him, kissing me hard.

  “Upstairs,” I said, pulling back and pointing. He put his palms on my butt as I walked up the steps in front of him. Since he was so tall, he practically had to bend in half to reach my butt cheeks. We both started laughing at how funny we surely looked.

  We spent the next two hours under the soft blue comforter in my bed. First, we stripped naked in less than five seconds with zero formality. Jake was gentle, like he was afraid to hurt me, like he couldn’t believe he was touching my body. He turned me on my stomach, facing the oversized mirror that doubled as a headboard. I spread my thighs and pressed my ass against his hard abs and thighs.

  “Am I too deep?” he asked, a question mark in his voice, as if other women had harangued him for hurting them.

  I looked at his face in the mirror.

  “Jake, there is no such thing as too deep.”

  I meant that on so many levels.

  * * *

  Jake called me every day after he left Philadelphia. Sometimes two or three times a day. I leapt every time my phone rang.

  A letter arrived three days after he went back to New York. His chicken-scratch writing, the bane of our high school English teachers, had, if anything, gotten more indecipherable over the years. Holding the crisp, cream-colored card with his name engraved on it, I eagerly read, and reread, every word written in his signature blue cartridge pen ink.

  Leslie—I feel a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, ranging from the pathetic to the sublime. You’re a really important person in my life, the first person I ever felt I was in love with. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that reuniting with you has stirred up a lot of powerful stuff in me, like silt that’s been settled at the bottom of a lake for years. Decades. A lot of time has gone by. You
are a beautiful and amazing woman. I admire you, and desire you, so much. But life is complicated. The true path is not clear yet, at least to me. All I know is that I feel deeply touched, and so alive. To be continued . . .

  Love, Jake

  PS—Have fun with my handwriting. XO

  There was so much wonder in my chest as I read these words, I no longer wanted ten text messages a day from five different lovers. I wanted letters on card stock from this one.

  * * *

  Jake left a voice mail on my phone the next afternoon.

  “Leslie. I have to see you again.” His voice was breathless. Taxis honked in the background. “Soon.”

  The words, and the insistent way he said them, made my heart rev unexpectedly.

  “There’s an indie film festival I have to go to in Atlantic City this Thursday. The festival will be over by nine. Do you want to meet me there and spend the night?”

  As a matter of fact, I did.

  Timmy’s team had a baseball banquet that afternoon, so I couldn’t leave for New Jersey until after the awards were handed out and I’d gone home to change out of my mom clothes into something sexier. I felt like a postmodern princess, the kind where I was my own fairy godmother and the TT my carriage. I made the drive in less than ninety minutes, pushing the accelerator, trusting Waze to avoid the Jersey state troopers stationed strategically along the Atlantic City Expressway.

  I wore a dress I expected Jake would love, the clingy white lace number I’d originally bought with Dylan in mind. It was shorter than any dress I’d dared to wear when I was his high school girlfriend. I could barely walk in my shiny silver T-strap sandals. When Jake came down to meet me around nine thirty, he had to pull me out of the TT with both forearms. His hands were strong and warm.

  He led me into the boutique hotel, with a postage-stamp lobby made to look larger with ornate, frameless stepped mirrors everywhere, torchiere art deco lamps giving off soft, golden light. As we walked along the crimson carpet to the elevator, his slipped his palm down the small of my back, looking over his shoulder and grinning at me, as if he couldn’t quite believe I had come. The doorman and bellhop stared at us. Jake’s hand traveled down toward my ass as he laughed at the tiny steps I had to take in the strappy heels.