Goddess (11 page)

I reached for his cock, fondling it through his trousers. I realized I was still wearing the white gloves. He felt big, substantial, engorged with hunger for me. I wanted him inside me so badly, but not here, not now. “Ashland,” I murmured, “we can’t—”

“I know,” he said. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” I breathed.

He moved from my nipples to my pussy, slipping a hand inside my underwear. His forefinger traced the outline of my engorged vulva, and then gently touched the tip of my erect clit. He moved around it in a slow, circular motion. I spread my legs wider. He moved his thumb to my clit, continuing to massage it as he slipped two more fingers into my saturated pussy. He immediately found my G-spot, a feat few other men had accomplished. That was all it took. I could feel it, like a wave gathering speed, rolling into shore. I was cumming. I gripped his firm shoulders as the wave crashed, again and again. I couldn’t suppress a small cry of pleasure and release.

Finally, my orgasm subsided. I opened my eyes and found him watching me with an intensity that frightened and excited me. “Julia,” he murmured, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

I tried to catch my breath. “Neither was I.”

CHAPTER 7

As I waited at the bus stop with CC, Ellen Tremont pulled up and powered down the passenger window of her enormous SUV. Her two kids were in the back, dutifully bent over their homework. Ellen was a faithful volunteer at school, but Van and I made fun of her because of her abundance of enthusiasm and her straight-laced family. “Hi, Julia,” she beamed. “How are you?”

“Good,” I replied. “Just waiting for Mackenzie’s bus.”

“Mackenzie’s so adorable. Well, have a great day!”

As I watched her pull away, I was tempted to shout after her,
I’ve already had a great day. A gorgeous man just fingered me to orgasm in the library!

Did I still look like the same mother Ellen saw at school? Were there outward signs that my whole body was churning with confused emotions?

I had replayed what happened so often, it felt like it had occurred weeks, not two hours ago. As a reality check, I ran my tongue across my lips. Yes, I could still taste him, and my legs still trembled slightly, reverberating from my orgasm.

Van hadn’t been entirely right. I still did feel fear, regret, and some shame about what had happened. I had cheated on my husband. There was no other way to honestly depict it. But the amazing energy pulsing through me drowned out my regrets. I felt like I had been reconnected to light and heat after a long time in deep winter. What happened that afternoon had thrust me back into a time when passion and desire was limited only by the capacity of my lovers. But the potential here seemed greater. Even though I barely knew him, Ashland Stewart’s assured touch made me wonder if he was the man I had been searching for, the one with whom I could fully explore my sexuality.

I saw the telltale yellow of the school bus appear down the street. It pulled up in front of me and the door swung open, revealing our favorite bus driver’s oversized body and affable smile. She greeted me just as she always did as we waited for Mackenzie to make her way up the aisle. She barely looked at me as she hopped off the bottom step and patted CC on the head. “Bradley told me he loves me,” she announced to either the dog or me.

“Who’s Bradley?”

“Oh, he’s a
kindergartener,
” she replied dramatically. “He tried to kiss me on the playground.”

“That’s against the rules,” I said as we walked home, Mackenzie weaving her way down the sidewalk.

“I
told
him that. He doesn’t care.”

I made a snack for Mackenzie while she dug her homework out of her backpack. I was relieved that she seemed to have noticed no difference in me. Anna would be home soon too, but it was Lily I was most concerned with. Somehow, despite the distance between us, she had become my most perceptive critic. But Lily was going straight to skating practice and wouldn’t be home until after my PTA committee meeting at school, so I was safe for awhile.

I very much wanted to call Van to tell her what had happened, but Anna tromped through the door and immediately found me in the dining room so she could share the story of a fight between two boys in the schoolyard. Mackenzie was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework. I was a mother. I had no privacy. Instead, I texted Van.
Coffee tomorrow morning?

I barely paid attention during my meeting, even though there were just four of us in attendance. Martha Ringold did most of the talking anyway. It was her project—creating a green roof on the school.
It could be a new spot for the teachers to smoke or have illicit sex,
I thought, smiling to myself. Was half the world really having an affair like Van claimed? I looked around at the other mothers. I couldn’t imagine any of them in bed with some hot guy.

Like I will be.

I chastised myself for the thought. No, this wasn’t inevitable. I could stop it now. It was just a minor dalliance in the rare books library. Not even sex really, at least by Bill Clinton’s definition.

Halfway through the meeting I felt my phone vibrate. I slipped it out to check the text message. It was from him.

I want to talk to you.

OK
, I wrote back.

This weekend?

I can’t.
It was true. Matt would be home and we had a full slate of family activities.

Monday?

Where?

10:00. The Shakespeare Gardens.

~*~

It was too chilly for dog beach so Van and I met at Starbucks. We chose a table in the back, where we could easily spot any familiar faces coming our way.

I went through the chronology of Friday’s events, not sparing any details because Van wouldn’t let me. When I finished, she took a long sip of her coffee before responding.

“What do you think he’s going to say on Monday?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t know what he’s thinking or what he wants.”

“He wants you.”

“This is crazy. It’s not like I was even looking for this.”

“Weren’t you?”

I frowned at her over my soy latte. “I haven’t exactly been hanging out at Mr. Goodbar trying to pick up men.”

“Julia, come on. You’re my best friend. It was obvious to me that you had a hole in your life that a job wasn’t going to fill.” She smiled, pleased with herself. “Nothing like an unintended double entendre.”

Van slid her coffee aside and leaned towards me, like a counselor ready to impart much-needed advice. “If you’re going to have an affair, you need to do it right. Most people get caught either because they take stupid chances or they want to get caught.”

“I can’t do this,” I said, shaking my head.

“Just listen. There’s no obligation to buy. You need to be careful about how you communicate with him. No flirty texts or Facebook messages. A secret email account is usually safe, but it’s best to only access it at work. Try not to lie if you don’t have to. If you go off to work but then spend the day fucking his brains out before coming home again, then you don’t have to make up a story. And remember, if you ever get caught in a tight spot, use me as an excuse. I’ll always cover for you.”

“It’s like joining a terrorist cell.”

Van smiled slyly. “But you get your reward here instead of having to wait till heaven.”

~*~

The Shakespeare Garden was a large, rectangular plot behind the Arts and Sciences building, hidden by thick, towering shrubs. It supposedly contained every flower mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, though I wasn’t one to take an inventory. In the summer, it was a quiet, cool escape from the Midwestern heat, but now it was mostly brown and desolate, with only a few fall flowers squatting under the gray sky. With little to attract visitors, it was a perfect spot to meet.

I slowly walked the garden’s narrow paths as I waited. I still had no idea what I would say to him or what would happen next. An affair was a leap off a moving train in darkness. I had no idea where I would land or if I was going to be seriously hurt.

I glanced at my watch: 10:20. He had changed his mind. He wasn’t coming. He was a typical man, eager for a brief physical encounter but frightened of intimacy. I had just made my mind up to leave campus and never return when I saw him enter the far end of the garden with long strides, a tall figure trailed by his black overcoat. As he drew closer, I could see the dark look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“TJ died late last night,” he replied in a strained voice.

Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around him and held him tightly. He responded by putting his own powerful arms around me. He was such an immense presence, it felt strange to comfort him in this way. But I could feel his shoulders slump and the tremor in his body. He was crying.

How had this happened? How had we become so intimate, first sexually, now emotionally, while still barely knowing one another? “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I looked up and saw the tears in his eyes. “I know you weren’t expecting to meet a grieving man this morning.”

“It feels like every time I meet you, something unexpected happens.”

“TJ would have been pleased to hear that. He often accused me of being set in my ways.”

“What do you need, Ashland?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve been preparing myself for this for a long time. TJ insisted I write his eulogy in advance so he could approve it. But I’m not good at this. I haven’t been to a funeral since Adriana died. I’m more comfortable dealing with people who have been dead at least a few thousand years.”

I met his eyes. “Do you want me to come to the funeral?”

“I know that’s asking a great deal.”

“It’s all right. We need to talk, but that can wait.”

“This isn’t calculated,” he said, his voice reverberating with emotion. “I just want you to know that. I had no intention of anything happening in Matilda’s Nest, or at the library. I’ve been struggling against this since the night we met, and twice I’ve failed to keep my emotions in check. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not a Vulcan.”

“I’m a man who has spent a long time maintaining his life on a very safe, even keel. Now, it seems, you’ve knocked me off-kilter.”

“But why? Why me?”

“You’re an amazingly beautiful woman, but you’re much more than that. After Adriana was murdered, I was convinced that life was just a series of cruel, random circumstances. It didn’t matter whom we loved, or if we loved at all.”

He reached out and took both my hands. His thumbs caressed my knuckles as if he were a blind man memorizing a raised-relief map. It felt so different from the way Matt had held my hand in the restaurant.

He took deep breath and continued. “Since that night we met, I’ve become convinced that you appearing in my life with the Magoan goddess symbol on your ankle wasn’t an accident. I don’t know what that means for us, or for my work, but more than anything right now, I want to explore the possibilities with you.”

~*~

Matt arrived home that evening looking tired. After a quick kiss for me and a hello to the girls, he went up to change. I found him sprawled on the bed in his pajamas. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“We lost a client today and Barry is blaming me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He turned to me. “Tim told me they left you a message offering you the job.”

I frowned. I hadn’t checked my voicemail in days, and I had forgotten all about the other position. “Matt, I’m not going to take it.”

He sat up, his face angry. “Why not? It’s a great opportunity, and Tim has been selling you hard.”

“I know. I’ll call everybody. I just… I love what I’m doing. I don’t want another job.”

I had rarely seen Matt look at me with such disapproval. “You need to have more ambition. What if I lost my job?”

“You know I would do whatever I had to to take care of our family, but I already do a lot, and right now I want to do something that’s meaningful for me.”

Matt continued to pout at me, but evidently he wasn’t up to pursuing his case today. “Fine, but an opportunity like this isn’t going to come along every day.”

~*~

That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I sat in the TV room, staring at the big blank screen. Yes, I really did like my job, but that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to stay.
You’re an amazingly beautiful woman, but you’re much more than that.
I knew those weren’t the words of a man trying to get something from me. He had opened up his heart, perhaps for the first time in years. It made me want to open myself to him, emotionally and physically. But was I willing to risk my marriage and my family to do it?

I couldn’t get any answers now, but I could relieve part of my frustration, at least temporarily. I got up and locked the door, then pulled off my jeans and panties before returning to the sofa. I grabbed a small blanket my mother had knitted us years ago and threw it around my shoulders to ward off the nighttime chill. This time my mind didn’t hesitate as it honed in on my desire. I wanted his lips to caress every inch of my body. I wanted to feel him inside me. I wanted him to fill me up.

I came within minutes, but the desire for him continued to reverberate even after I fell asleep.

~*~

The next day Ashland emailed me the funeral information. I waited until the day before the service to tell Matt. He was surprised that I was attending. “Everybody in the department will be there,” I lied. “I just feel like I should go.”

The morning of the funeral I went downstairs to the kitchen and found Matt lingering over his coffee. “You haven’t left for work yet?” I asked.

He put down his phone. “I thought I’d go with you.”

I tried to maintain an even voice. “You don’t need to. I won’t even know most of the people there.”

“I thought you said the whole department would be there.”

“It’s out in the distant suburbs. I don’t know how many people are actually going to make it.”

“All the more reason I should go with you,” he countered. “I just thought we haven’t seen much of each other lately, and I feel like taking a personal day.”

“Is this because of what’s going on at work?”