Now or Never: A Last Chance Romance (Part 1) (8 page)

The hallway is completely silent, and the thought of turning back and running down to the lobby occurs to me at least three times between the elevator and the hotel room.

But I don’t.

The key card slides in easily.  I look around, as if I’m breaking into the room and someone’s going to bust me.

My heels are loud on the marble foyer entrance, but I reach carpet and my movement becomes silent.

I walk slowly through the suite.  The bedroom door is half open.  A soft light is on inside.  If I want to turn back, now’s the time.  But I steel myself and push the door open.

A man sits on the bed.

I jump, startled, even though on some level, I knew a guy would be waiting for me.  Deep down, I had hoped it would be Justin.

This man is not Justin, but he’s extremely attractive.  Short-cropped brown hair and a face that reminds me vaguely of a football player I knew in high school.  His shoulders are broad, and he’s wearing a suit with a very loose tie.

“Come on in.  I don’t bite,” he says with a smile.  His voice is a deep bass.

I don’t know what to say.  I don’t think I’m capable of saying anything.

I take a few steps.  He watches me, but doesn’t move from his spot at the edge of the bed.  He has chocolate brown eyes.  I want to ask him how he knows Justin.  Why he’s doing this.  Or
what
he’s doing, for that matter.

“Sit,” he says.  It’s not a command, more like an invitation.  Like, “have a seat.”

I put my handbag on the floor, and perch on the opposite end of the mattress.  He stands, and walks to me, standing in front of me.

“I’m already hard for you,” he says.

Oh my lord.  Did he just say that?

I can’t help but look — he’s right in front of me.  Sure enough, I see the outline of his thick cock straining against his pants.

He takes my hand and presses it against himself, holding it there for a second.  I look up at him.

“Relax,” he says.  He moves my hand up and down.  I feel detached, like my hand is no longer part of my body.  His hand falls away.  Moment of truth — either I pull away or keep up the rhythmic stroking.

“That feels good,” he says.  My stomach does a tiny flip.

My hand roams more freely.  I let myself get into it, rubbing the tip, wondering what it would be like to do this underneath his pants.

He moves away, out of my reach, pressing my shoulders gently until I’m on my back.  I stare at the ceiling, heart beating wildly.  Whatever spell had overtaken me when I touched him is broken.  I’m so tense, all I can do is slowly turn my head to watch him cross the room and close the bedroom door.

He moves like an athlete, or at least a former one.  I’m guessing he’s Justin’s age, or maybe a little younger.  He returns to the bed, sitting next to me.

My heart pounds, and I’m excruciatingly self-conscious.

He pulls out a black handkerchief from the top drawer of the bedside table.

“I’m going to put this over your eyes,” he says.  It’s not a question, though I sense I can easily say no.  I don’t.

I lift my head forward and he ties the blindfold around my forehead.

“If you want me to stop, just say stop.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“Make you feel good.”

Oh, my lord.  If it weren’t for the glass of Chardonnay I downed, I’d be having a stroke right about now.

He unbuttons my blouse, hands skimming over my breasts.  He unhooks my bra, slowly removing it.

I feel vulnerable and exposed.  Is the pounding in my chest from fear or excitement?  His mouth finds my breasts.  Sucking gently on my nipples one at a time.  They become hard as darts.

He moves away.  The air tingles against my wet skin.  I shiver.  His hands trail down my belly, to my waist.  He reaches around and unzips my skirt.  He tugs it over my hips, until it’s off.  I’m left in my underwear and garters.

His hands trace my thighs, skim over my undergarments.  I let out a small sigh
.  I will stay in the moment, I will stay in the moment
.

A finger slips under my lingerie, grazing my pussy with the lightest touch.  My insides flip.  It’s been so long since a guy has touched me like this, I wonder if my body can stand it.  I feel myself shake, and that can’t be normal.

His hand moves away, and for a second I feel nothing — until he slides off my underwear.  I can’t believe I’m letting a stranger look at me like this, touch me like this.  But that thought is barely a whisper compared to my body screaming for more.

He spreads my legs.  I tell myself to let him,
let him
.

His finger again fondles, touching lightly, every fold of my pussy, in loose circles.  The darkness imposed by the blindfold heightens my other senses.  When he brushes my clit, I moan.  He puts more pressure on it, and I bend my knees, digging my heels into the bed.

Then it’s not his finger, but the hot wetness of his tongue, tracing the path his finger drew, sucking the swollen bead of my clit.  I’m making sounds I don’t recognize.

His tongue presses inside me.  I reach down, pulling at him.  I have the shocking realization that I would let this guy fuck me.  I want him to fuck me.  How can this end any way other than his cock inside me?

“Oh my god,” I say.  His finger slides back in, his mouth there, too.  His tongue and his fingers play me like he’s known my body forever.  I grab his wrist, squeezing, bucking against his hand.  A quickening throb of pleasure takes me out of control.  I thrust against him, my pussy convulsing against his fingers.  I ride it, gasping, until my body finally tremors with release.

When I am still, he runs his hand lightly over my pussy.  I shudder, chills running through my body.

He pulls a blanket over me, to my waist.  I pull it higher, covering myself.  I wait for him to say something, or pull off the blindfold.  But I don’t hear movement.  I don’t hear anything.  Until the click of the door to the suite tells of its opening and closing.

I wait a few beats before sitting up and tugging off the blindfold.  I’m filled with that dazed feeling you get after a massage, kind of buzzy and tired.  But when I sit up — slowly, not quite trusting my equilibrium — I feel a surge of elation.

It’s over.  My dry spell, my slump, my self-imposed pleasure drought, is finished.

I have my body back.  At least, for now.

*** ***

“Earth to Claire.”

I look up, startled to find Joan from the fragrance counter.

“What did you say?”

“One of my customers is asking for a lipstick called Rendez-vous.  Are you okay?”

“Just a little tired.” I barely slept last night.  Long after I got home from The Four Seasons, my mind raced with freeze-frame images of the stranger and a vivid sense-memory of the way he touched me.

I pull open the top drawer of my bay, where the lipsticks are lined up in their boxes in alphabetical order.  I hand Rendez-vous to Joan.  At least she has a customer, the store has been quiet all day.  Usually, this would frustrate me.  But since I’m not exactly functioning in top form, I’m grateful for the respite.

A quick glance at the clock above the elevator banks tells me I spaced a little too much.  I’m late to meet Justin at Starbucks.  He insisted we have coffee so I can debrief him about last night.

“I’m going on break,” I call to Patti so she can keep an eye on my counter.  She ignores me, still pissed off about me running out on the book club.

I close the register, and hurry outside.

Justin is already sitting at a table with two coffees.  Unlike me, he looks quite rested.  He’s dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a gray hooded sweatshirt.  I’ve never seen him so casual, and he looks about twenty years old.

“Nice name tag.”

Ugh.  I meant to take it off.  But while the remark is teasing, the smile on his face is unmistakably flirtatious.  I wonder if my rendez-vous last night is making him see me in a different light.

 
“We could have done this over the phone,” I tell him, dropping into a chair.  I’m not really complaining.  I’m happy to see him.

“No way,” he says.  “Last night merits a face-to-face.”

“We could have talked about it tonight during the coffee break.”

“I’m not a patient man,” he says, smiling lazily.  “So how’d it go? From the way you’re glowing, I’d guess pretty damn well.”

Now it’s my turn to smile.  I play with the plastic lid on my coffee.  And then, the question that I keep trying to quell but can’t.  “Who was he?”

“Oh no.  We’re not going there,” Justin says.  And I see immediately he means it.

“Why not?”

Justin sits back in his chair, playing the lid on his paper cup.  “I didn’t tell him who you are, he doesn’t want you know who he is.  It’s not about that.”

“I know it’s not about that.  But, how do you know him?”

Justin smiles.  He looks really mischievous.

“Don’t get mad.”

“Oh, my god, Justin.  What?”

“Before I went to AA, I spent time hanging out at Sex Addicts Anonymous.”

“That’s not even funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

I search his face for some sign that he’s teasing me.  I don’t find one.

“You are such an asshole!”

“What?  He’s a good guy.”

I feel sick.  I don’t know why — nothing about what happened last night has changed.  What did I think — a nice, wholesome, regular guy was going to miraculously show up for an anonymous hotel tryst?  But still.

“You might get off on hooking up with people who have issues.  But don’t drag me into that,” I say.

“Oh, like
you
don’t have issues, Claire?  You think the fact that you have zero sex makes you better than the people who need lots of it?  You’re just the flip side of the same fucked-up coin.”

I look at him, shocked into silence.  But not for long.

“Okay, fine,” I say slowly.  “So I’m fucked up.  And the AA people are fucked up.  And the sex anonymous people are fucked up.  But you know what?  You’re the worst.  You troll amongst us for your own amusement, like some kind of sick tourist.”

He looks stricken.  Then his face settles into something neutral and detached.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.  I thought I was helping.”

“Really?  Because you have insisted all along that you’re helping yourself in some way.  But you refuse to tell me the truth about how or why.  And I don’t need your help.”

He stands, looking at me with unmistakable wistfulness.

“I’m really sorry you feel that way.  Good luck, Claire.”

Walking back into the store, I tell myself to calm down.  I don’t need him.  It’s better this way.  Let him find someone else to toy with, to turn into his source of amusement.

Aimee is at my counter.  Taking care of my customers.

This is not good.

She rings up a two women, packing their purchases into shopping bags, not even glancing at me as I move behind the counter to stand beside her.

“Enjoy your new color,” she smiles sweetly at them, then turns to me with dagger eyes.

“Where have you been?”

“I took my break,” I say, looking at the clock.  I’ve barely been gone twenty minutes, the allotted time.

“Why would you take a break at the busiest time of day?” she hisses, impressively managing to yell and be quiet at the same time.

“It’s not usually busy at this hour,” I tell her.  “And it was dead all morning.”

“You know, Claire, with all of your
appointments
the past month,” she says appointments as if the word has air quotes around it — as if they may or may not be real.  “I would at least hope you’d make an effort to make up the time by staying at your counter during a busy afternoon.  From the numbers I saw last week, maybe you can do even more than that.  Just a thought.”

I watch her saunter off, and shake my head when she is out of sight.  For the first time in all the years I have worked here, I have the urge to quit — just walk out.

“Did you hear that?” I say to Patti.  I know she heard it.  The Clinique counter is five feet away.

She’s still ignoring me.  I can’t take fighting with Patti — not now.

“Isn’t there a statue of limitations on this sort of thing?” I call from behind my counter.

She looks up at me.  I can tell she weighing whether or not to continue with the silent treatment.  Something in my face tips her off that I need her — that this isn’t the time to dig in her heels.

“We were only trying to help,” she says.

I look around, making sure Aimee is gone, and I rush over to her.

“I know,” I say, suddenly fighting tears.  “And I appreciate it.  I do.  But I’m trying to tell you I need you to leave it alone.  That would really be the most help.”

She nods.  “Okay.  I’m sorry.  We didn’t mean to ambush you.  But you’re pushing us away, you rejected the support group.  I would feel better knowing there was someone helping you.”

I hear Justin’s words.  
I thought I was helping you.

And I hear myself. 
I don’t need your help.

I can’t hold back the tears.  My sobs break through, loud and messy.  Customers standing near the elevator look at us.  Patti rushes around her counter, then throws her arms around me so fast it’s like she’s trying to catch me before I fall.

*** ***

At seven o’clock, when I would normally be finding a seat at the Erotic Reading Salon, I am instead at home on my couch watching television.

Midnight is curled in my lap, but she is small consolation.

I wish I’d never met Justin.  I was perfectly fine before he got involved in my life.  Okay, so I had a few regrets.  But I was dealing with them.  I was having fun at the Reading Salon.  Now, to avoid him, I can’t go tonight.

He’s such an arrogant jerk.  The worst kind of handsome, entitled, Master of the Universe asshole.  I can’t believe I fell for his bullshit.

Midnight yawns, stretching out lazily.  Next week I have to take her to be neutered.  The vet told me she is in perfect health.  She just has to have her ovaries removed.

I look down at her, stroking her silky coat.  “Yeah, you and me both, kid.”

The thing is, if I’d never met Justin, I wouldn’t have the Now or Never List.  And while things have changed between us, while our friendship crashed and burned, the now or never part hasn’t changed.

Midnight jumps off my lap to scamper into the kitchen, either chasing some imaginary noise, or to eat.  Either way, her departure frees me to get off the couch.

I walk quickly up the stairs into my bedroom, where I open the top drawer of my nightstand.  The list is there, where I left it weeks ago.  I pick it up, gently, as if it’s some ancient artifact that might dissolve under my touch.  The sight of Justin’s handwriting gives me a pang.  But I remind myself it’s not about Justin.

I’m not going to sit home, licking my wounds over a friendship that wasn’t even real, or over a schoolgirl crush that was never going anywhere.

I can’t turn Justin into my boyfriend.

My job at the store isn’t going to change.

And my cancer isn’t going to just disappear.

But The List is one thing that’s in my control.  I scan the items and see that amazingly, only one more event and I’ll be halfway done.  Three weeks ago, I thought this whole thing was purely hypothetical.

Number five: Watch people have sex.

After the intimacy of the hotel encounter, this should be relatively easy.  I don’t even have to
do
anything except find a pair of willing exhibitionists.  What was it Justin said?  
Sex is everywhere once you’ve got your eyes open.

I know exactly where to start looking.