"How are your joints feeling?" asked Woody, as he and Crystal walked out the doors of the conference center.
"Fine," she said, looking around.
"Oh," he said. "Good. I just thought you might need to stretch ... or something."
Crystal turned to him, her gaze level.
"Just because I acted like a fool last night doesn't mean I'm a fool."
"You didn't act
like a fool last night," he objected. "You acted like a woman,
who needed something. I thought I gave it to you."
"Don't think you
can just snap your fingers and I'll just hop in bed for you," she
said. "I thought you wanted something deeper than that, anyway."
"I do," he
said. He looked off down the street. "OK, then, sex is
out. Sex is just a fond memory. No more sex. What do
you want to do instead?"
"And don't try
that either, you bum," said Crystal, leaning toward him and
frowning. "This isn't just black and white. I didn't
say I never want to have sex with you again, and you know it."
"I don't know
anything," said Woody. "Except that you're in a bad mood, for
some reason. I find it fascinating that I like being around
you, even when you're in a bad mood."
"You're the reason for my bad mood," she grumbled.
"Me? What did I do?"
"You made me feel happier than I've felt since long before my divorce," she said.
"And that's bad?"
"We're leaving
here in two days, Woody. I understand completely what
Roberta was talking about. I finally meet a man I like, who I
think I can trust, and who makes me feel things I didn't think I'd ever
feel again, and, in two days, he's going to trot back off to where he
came from."
"Well, for Pete's sake," said Woody. "Why didn't you just say so? Can I have your address?"
"Like you'd really come see me," said Crystal.
He looked stunned, and took a step back. Then the look on his face went determined, almost angry.
"Room!" ordered Woody. "Now!"
"What?" She actually looked surprised.
"Go to your room right now," he said.
"Why?" she asked.
"You were in
charge last night. It's my turn," he said. "We're going to
your room right now. Go on," he said, waving at her with the
backs of his hands, like he was shooing a flock of pigeons away.
"Woody," she complained.
"Now!" he said firmly. "No questions ... just go."
To his immense
relief, she turned, and walked off. She used her normal gait, and
did not wait for him. She didn't quite stalk, but her body was
tense. He caught up with her just as she pushed the door to
her room open.
"Please take off your blouse and bra," instructed Woody.
"I told you ..."
"And I told YOU
that it's my turn to be in charge," he said. "I'm not going to
touch you. Just take off your blouse and bra."
"What about my skirt?" she asked.
"I was going to have you take that off later, but if you want to, you can take it off now."
"Woody, what are you doing?"
"No questions. Just do it," he said.
To his added
relief, she began unbuttoning her blouse. She was looking at his
face, and there was curiosity on hers. That was good.
Within a minute she stood before him in only panties.
He walked around
her, examining her body. She took a breath, and opened her mouth,
but it was obvious he was looking for something, and her curiosity
about what he was doing made her wait.
"You have freckles," he said.
"Yes, on my shoulders," she said. "So what?"
"I didn't notice those last night." He kept walking. "There's a scar on your hip," he said.
"I got it when I fell out of a tree when I was a girl," she said. "Woody, what in the world are you doing?"
"I'm looking at
the woman I spent the last two days with," he said calmly. "May I
touch you? Not sexually ... just to point out a few things."
"I guess so," she said, uncertainly.
He traced a finger lightly from the middle of her back up toward one shoulder.
"There's a band
of muscle here that bulges and ripples when you move your arm. I
saw it the other day when you were in the hot tub." He
walked to her side, and his fingers touched her thigh. "You're
thirty years old, but there isn't an ounce of cellulite on your thighs."
He came to her front, and his fingers traced across her belly. That flesh sucked in and rippled as he did so.
"Harden that," he instructed her.
The flesh went taut and flat, hard as a board.
"Good abdominal muscles," he said, like he was examining a cow or something.
His eyes came up
to her breasts. He stared at them and did not look in her
eyes. He knew, somehow, that she was looking at his eyes, and not
what they were looking at.
"Fantastic
breasts, with full nipples," he breathed, and for the first time there
was more than just description in his voice. He kept his
eyes on her breasts, first one, and then the other. "The left one
is a little bigger than the right, though," he said, almost as if he
were disappointed.
"Woody ..."
"Hush, I'm not
finished yet," he said, letting his eyes move upward. "Freckles
on the upper chest too, and a long neck." His eyes finally came
to her face and he felt almost fear as he saw her eyes had tears in
them.
"Strong jaw,
with high cheekbones. Eyes I could fall into," he said, his voice
softer now. "Lips that call to me every time I look at them."
"Why are you doing this?" she whispered.
"Because I love
everything about you," he said calmly. "I love your voice, and
the way you think. I love your hair, and your eyes, and the
planes of your face. I love every freckle you have, because I
want to kiss them all, and that means I'd get to kiss you a lot, and I
love kissing you. I love that you gave me a chance. I
loved it when you had the book upside down, because I knew you were
rattled, and that meant you'd actually noticed me, even though you
pretended not to. I love that you told me how you felt. I
even loved it last night when you teased me, and took
charge." He smiled. "I think you know how I felt
about what happened last night."
He stepped back suddenly.
"And this woman
I love has disappointed me, because she thinks I'll be able to forget
all about her in two days. She thinks I won't care enough to do
whatever it takes to be near her. She thinks I don't love
her. And that makes me disappointed in me too, because that
means I was too chicken ... too scared ... too gutless to tell her how
I felt until right now."
He frowned, and turned sideways to her.
"Or ... it could
mean she doesn't feel the same way about me at all ... that she assumed
I felt the same way she does about all this. That would mean I
should have kept my mouth shut."
He turned
back. "This really isn't easy ... this relationship
stuff. I see why all those women drifted away from
me. I'm somewhat indecisive, and sort of natter on sometimes ...
huh."
He picked up her blouse and handed it to her.
"I just wanted
to look at you one last time," he said. "To fix you in my
memory. If you don't want me to see you any more, I understand."
She took the
blouse, but her face was unreadable. The hand that wasn't holding
the blouse, though, balled into a fist. Woody stepped back one
more step, just in case he'd made her so mad she'd actually swing at
him. She put the blouse on, but didn't button it, like it was a
habitual motion. Then she walked past him, to the window, pulled
the curtain back so she could look outside, and then let it fall
back. Only the light by the bed was on, so the room was
relatively dark.
She paced, not looking at Woody, and when she spoke, she spoke to the room at large.
"Before last
night, I hadn't had sex with a man for eight years, seven months, and
twenty-one days. During those eight years, seven months and
twenty-one days, I had between fifty and a hundred opportunities to
have sex with a man. I didn't count them. I'm
estimating. But I didn't have sex with any of those men, because
sex was all they wanted from me."
Woody didn't say anything. He'd asked her not to talk while he was talking, so he gave her the same courtesy.
"Before last
night, I was embarrassed to be with most men, because I was taller than
they were. Everybody knows that short men and tall women don't
work well, unless the man is old and rich, and the woman is young and
beautiful."
"Before last
night, I never once let a man put his penis in me, unless he had on a
condom. Not even my husband. That's because I wasn't ready
to have children, and I knew that. By the time I felt qualified
to take care of a baby, I was divorced."
She turned to him now, looking straight at him. "You might remember that last night, no one mentioned condoms."
Woody nodded, his eyes big. He hadn't even thought about it, until his impending orgasm forced him to.
"You tried to be
a gentleman last night," she said. "You offered to try to protect
me by withdrawing, even though us sex ed teachers are fully aware that
withdrawal is not a good form of birth control. You may
remember that I objected to the idea of protecting me that way."
He nodded
again. Of everything they had done, that was the part that
thrilled him the most, because she accepted something dangerous from
him. He had assumed it was because her passion overrode her
common sense, but decided to take the chance that one time. He
had a four pack of condoms in his pocket right this minute, in fact,
purchased on the assumption that they would make love
again. Her outburst had changed all that, and he had
believed, despite the evidence to the contrary, that she wasn't
interested in a long distance relationship, or one that was going to
involve hard decisions, as this one would be if they pursued it.
"You did not
communicate your true feelings to me," she said. "At least not in
words that were so easy to understand as those you just spoke a few
minutes ago. I may have committed the same error, so I'll explain
it to you now."
She sat down on the bed. Woody was still standing, but was afraid that if he moved, he'd break the mood.
"I would never
... ever ... EVER," she emphasized "allow a man to put his naked penis
inside me, and ejaculate, unless I loved him enough to be willing to
have his baby."
Woody opened his
mouth, and she held up a hand. She didn't even have to remind him
she hadn't been allowed to talk until he was finished.
"And I would
never ... ever ... EVER even THINK about having a man's baby, unless I
loved him so much that, whether he stayed with me or not, I knew I
would love him forever."
She stood up, nervously.
"I never met a
man like that ... not even the man I married ... until you smiled at me
on that plane and said "Hi". She paced again. "I
tried to ignore you. I was rude to you. I insulted
you. When I finally realized how wrong I was, I didn't want to
believe it, because that meant I had to try to trust you, and go
through the steps to find out if it was real or not, and I didn't want
to try, because its so hard."
She
whirled. "But you wouldn't leave me alone. Fate even
stepped in to put us together as partners in this stupid
seminar. I wasn't looking for a relationship, and I ended
up in a seminar designed to create one! Not only that, it was a
seminar for MARRIED people. Do you remember what you said last
night, when I told you I wasn't on the pill?"
"I said you'd have to marry me if you got pregnant," he said softly.
"Do you remember what I said then?" she asked.
"You said you'd marry me anyway," he whispered. "I thought it was just the passion of the moment."
"Was what you said only the passion of the moment?" she asked.
"No!" he said firmly.
"What I said
wasn't either." She walked until her breasts touched his upper
chest. "It wasn't a proposal, Woody," she said. "I was just
telling you how I felt about you."
"Oh, wow!" he said, his hands coming to her waist.
"Can't you
understand how I'd be a little frustrated that we only have two more
days together?" she asked. "All I did was complain a little
bit, and you went off the deep end."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I get excited sometimes."
"I noticed
that," she said. "But that's not your only fault. You
brought me here, MADE me come here, and almost made me cry, and I'm
still almost naked, and you have ALL your clothes on."
"Would you feel
better if you were completely naked?" asked Woody. "Instead of
almost naked, I mean. I'd help you get completely naked."
"I don't want to
tease you, and I don't want you to tease me today," she said, not
smiling. "I want to let a man's naked penis in my pussy again,
and I don't care if he spurts a lot."
They only made
love for two hours. Then he took her dancing for four hours, and
they came back and made love again, before falling asleep.
They were asleep when it was time to go meet the others. They
missed the hot tub conference completely.
