Love and Other Natural Disasters (31 page)

"It's not like being
there," Jacob said, looking at the ground, "because Liv will be
there."

"Why don't I go get Liv ready,
and you two can talk a little more?" I said.

Jon smiled at me gratefully and
turned back to Jacob.

Olivia was drooling more, and she'd
be teething soon. I just hoped she wouldn't be too fussy that day, for Jacob's
sake. As I gathered her things, I could hear the rise and fall of the
conversation in the other room—Jacob protesting, Jon mixing empathy with
reality. He'd always been good at that. I had faith that things would be in
hand by the time I changed Olivia and brought her back into the living room.

Jon and Jacob were sitting on the
couch, and Jon was talking quietly to Jacob, who still looked discontented.
"Here she is," I said, kissing her head. "How's everything out
here?" Olivia was letting out a low gurgle, but was otherwise calm.

Jacob didn't answer, just stared at
the floor.

"We're going to have
fun," Jon said. "Why don't we get going, buddy?"

"Fine," Jacob muttered,
standing up.

As I handed Olivia to Jon, she let
out an earsplitting cry. "I think she might be on the verge of
teething," I said.

Jon looked like he appreciated my
effort, but that explanation wasn't fooling anyone. I knew it hurt him to be
this much of a stranger to Liv.

He put his arm out so I could slip
the bag with her things over his shoulder, and in that second, our eyes met.
"Bye, Eve," he said, his eyes sad, his smile wistful.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Some nights just can't be salvaged.
They start out off-key, and somehow all the good intentions and planning and
hope in the world can't dispel the underlying whiff of doom, and at the end,
you
realize
you should have just quit while you were ahead. You
shouldn't have suggested going to one more bar, or adding on a cappuccino, or
watching the second in a double feature. You should have accepted the simple
fact that some nights aren't your night.

But there are those times when,
miraculously, it turns around. One of you names the tension, or just starts
laughing, and somehow you've done it. You're having a different time than you
thought you would, but maybe even better for the intimacy of the near miss.
You've dodged a bullet, together.

I was hoping my night with Ray
would be the latter. I tried to remind myself that you can't have the latter
without the former. If your plane wasn't going down, you couldn't have that
glorious moment where it righted itself.

Well, this plane seemed to be going
down. I was shaken by the moment I'd shared with Jon, traffic into the city was
bumper to bumper, and parking (even by the standards of the Mission on a
Saturday night) was atrocious. I was sweating and sure that I'd forgotten
deodorant, and I felt my inner thighs sticking together under my skirt. Why had
I worn a skirt? It was a ridiculous choice. I didn't like even thinking about
what shirt Ray would be wearing, and how many drinks it might take for me to
get beyond it. What were the odds I would recover that sexual feeling from last
week? There was no way lightning was going to strike me twice.

After a nightmarish
parallel-parking job, where I grazed the nearby bumpers no fewer than four
times, I walked the five blocks to Ray's apartment. People who were younger and
better-looking than me mobbed the streets. It occurred to me that they might
not have actually been younger, but I felt ten years older than them. Which
would put me right in Ray's ballpark. I was thirty and dating a
forty-four-year-old man. That's like saying you've given up.

Ray buzzed me into his building,
and I approached his apartment with trepidation. Who knew what decorating
horrors lay inside? I knocked lightly, and when he opened the door, my mouth
immediately watered. "What is that?" I breathed.

"Bolognese sauce," he
said. He pecked me on the cheek, and I inhaled him, that reassuring scent that
reminded me why I'd come.

I went inside, pleased to find that
the apartment was eclectic, but by no means repulsive. There wasn't much furniture,
just a weathered brown leather couch and matching chair and ottoman. The perimeter
of the apartment was what drew the eye: The walls were an unusual fern color,
and each one showcased a different interest. There was a wall of music (both
CDs and vinyl), floor to ceiling, and a wall of bikes of different types and
from different eras that almost seemed like an art installation. "Do you
ride all of those?" I asked.

"I take the classics out for a
spin every now and again, but mostly, I just ride the newer ones." He
pointed to two bikes. "That one's for the city, that one's for the mountains."

I approached a wall covered with
framed photos. "Burning Man," he said, referring to the yearly
festival in the Nevada desert, where thousands of people gathered to create
their own civilization for a week. "It's the biggest ode to self-expression
and community in the world. And the drugs aren't bad, either."

He went into his kitchen to stir
the pots as I looked at the photos. I'd heard about Burning Man, but never had
occasion to go. It was like a dream city that people erected and destroyed in a
week's time. They made pagodas out of PVC pipes, lived inside homemade geodesic
domes. From his pictures, it seemed Ray was especially taken with the fire art:
metal sculptures with flames rising high into the desert night, people dancing
with blazing torches. There were day images of the white-sand desert itself,
then of groups of people walking across in various stages of dress and undress.
One showed a group of men wearing only tulle ballet skirts, engaged in deep
conversation. There was one of Ray dressed head to toe in flowing white, like
an Arabian sheikh, an expression of contemplation on his face.

"You go every year, I take
it?" I said.

"I wouldn't miss it. You've
never been, I take it?"

"No."

"Everyone should go at least
once."

"Do married people with kids
go?" I said, without thinking.

Ray seemed unaffected by my blurt.
"Probably. Do you want some wine?"

"That'd be great."

I watched him uncork a bottle of
red and pour it into two glasses. He brought one to me. I took a gulp and
started coughing.

"Easy there," he said.

"Do you ever get the feeling
you should quit while you're ahead?" I asked.

He looked at me carefully, then
sipped his wine. "What are you trying to say, Eve?"

"I just have this sinking
feeling about tonight. I know I shouldn't say that, but I can't quite shake
it."

"I like that you say things
you shouldn't say."

"Your turn. Say something you
shouldn't say."

He took a minute to consider.
"Here's the deal, Eve. I don't want to marry anyone. I don't want to be
the father to anyone's kids. I like you, and I'm attracted to you, and I think
we can be good for each other right now. And if that's all, well, that's good
enough. We don't have to take this so heavy."

While listening to him, my feelings
segued from confusion to rejection to relief to excitement. "So you're
saying no pressure."

He raised a glass in toast.
"No pressure," he said.

This is an opportunity.

Leading me toward the bedroom, Ray
stopped and turned back. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. After
trying out a few ways to say it in my head, I went with, "I want to learn
from you."

"What do you want to
learn?"

"I want to learn about me.
What I like. What I'm capable of."

He moved in close and kissed me. It
was slower and sweeter than the other night, but just as intense. Yes, I was
sure.

Once in his bedroom, he turned on a
floor lamp. I was startled by the sudden light, but then realized it was soft
and forgiving from the iron-framed bed. "May I?" he asked, touching
my shirt.

I nodded, and he lifted it over my
head. I tried not to feel self-conscious. I suppose I'd expected to stay
dressed until he wanted me so badly that my body wouldn't matter.

I hated that I thought that way.

This is
an opportunity.

That I was ruining, in my head.

"Hey," Ray said gently.
"Come back." He was tracing my collarbone, then kissing it. "You
look perfect."

I closed my eyes and let myself
believe it as he kissed my neck, reaching behind me and unclasping my bra in
one expert move. I felt the heaviness of my breasts as he took the bra away,
then lightness as he cradled them in his hands. My nipples hardened under his
mouth, and I leaned my head back, feeling nothing else.

His hands were still on my breasts,
and now his lips were on mine, his tongue alternating in pressure. I reached
for the zipper on my skirt and released it, feeling the pleasure of the fabric
slipping down my legs. I stepped free, and we moved to the bed.

Ray yanked his head back suddenly.
"You're okay?" he said.

The question pulled me out.
"Yes, I'm good," I said. I plunged back in, thrusting my tongue into
his mouth.

"Good," he said through
the kiss. The word echoed through me.

He began kissing downward, from my
neck to my breasts to the space in between to my stomach. I giggled as he
licked my belly button, then tensed slightly as he continued below. I thought
that it had now been hours since I'd showered, and about how long it had been
since someone had put his mouth there. It might have been the most naked I'd
ever felt, as he paused there.

He began lightly kissing my
clitoris, and I immediately moaned and forgot everything.

He went harder, then softer, sped
up, slowed down. Every time I arched my back even the slightest bit, tightened
my hand in his hair, he responded. I'd never been read so well.

He put his finger inside me, just a
little bit, then farther. I missed his mouth; then it returned as his finger
continued rhythmically. "Oh, my God," I gasped. He moved his mouth
and finger in concert, and I felt myself opening up. Now he had two fingers
inside me. I grabbed at the iron headboard, my legs starting to buck
involuntarily. I didn't want to come. I didn't want it to end, and I wanted it
to end right there. The sensations were too intense. I didn't want to feel the
best I'd ever felt with someone I barely knew. It seemed wrong, and then that
seemed out-of-this-world erotic.

"Do you want me to stop?"
he asked. It was like a dispatch from another planet, I was so far away.

"No," I said desperately.

He started up again with his hand.
I looked down and saw him watching himself touching me. He noticed me looking.

"I like to watch," he
said. "Is that okay? It turns me on to watch you."

I didn't want to say,
It's too
personal.
I didn't want to say, Jon
always had his eyes closed.

I nodded, closing my own eyes. I
wanted to return to before, when it was all sensation. I tried to let go, but I
couldn't.

Ray was the one to let go, and he
moved so that we were face-to-face. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't
mean to freak you out. I'm a visual person."

"There's nothing wrong with
it, I get that."

"What turns you on?"

"I don't know," I said. I
felt antsy. Too much talk, and I'd never recover that earlier feeling.

"Are you okay with us trying
to find out? I mean, it seemed like you liked what I was doing for a while'
there."

"I loved it. It was a little
scary."

He looked searchingly into my eyes
in the half-darkness. "You don't need to feel scared with me. The scary
thing, I think, is really showing yourself sexually to the person you're
spending a lifetime with, worrying that they're going to judge you for what you
really want. That's when people hold back. You can just be anything you want in
here." Ray paused. "What do you want, Eve?"

I reached for him.

"Like this," he said,
taking my hips in his hands and showing me. Then he groaned.

I was on top, and his lower body
was lifted off the bed, moving with me. Two bodies of equal force, pressure,
intensity. I felt him everywhere. I felt myself everywhere.

"Use your muscles," he
said.

"I am," I said. It was a
workout.

"No. Down there."

I lost the rhythm for a second,
focusing on how to do what he was asking.

"Just grip my cock," he
said. "With your muscles."

I never would have expected it, but
when he said the word "cock," I just about lost it. Jon had never
been a talker.

"Keep talking," I said.

"Grip me, Eve. Hold on to
me."

I got what he meant. It felt like I
was holding him tight, from the inside. A charge went through my entire body.

"Oh, God, that's it," he
said.