Being Eloise (An Erotic Romance Collection, Books 1-3) (5 page)

“So Olivia thought I should give you a call,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, she did say that.”

“So what are you doing this week? I’m not good over the phone.”

“You’re fine,” I said.

“What about tonight?”

“Tonight? I’m not doing anything tonight. Wait, actually I have a–, I have something tonight. Actually just about every night. Days are better.” The wrong things to say, I knew, but better than what I’d meant to say.
I have a teenager.
For a moment there I’d forgotten it all: that I was a mother, that I had a son, that I was lonely.

That’s good,” Terrance said. “I work late afternoons and evenings, anyway.”

Zizza-zizza-zizza. I pressed the vibrator against myself, hard.

“What about tomorrow, then?”

“You’re asking to see me?” I asked. “You don’t have to do that. Olivia was probably joking.”

“I know she wasn’t,” Terrance said.

All I really wanted from him at this moment was his voice. To hear him talk. To come to that voice and be done with it. I wasn’t really yet thinking of seeing him, in person. Besides, then it would likely just be awkward and unpleasant and not as enveloping an experience as this, right now. Rata-ta…

“How are your peaks,” he asked.

“My?”

“Your cream.”

“Yes,” I said. “Can you hold on?” I asked.

“Sure.”

And I had to stuff the phone under the pillow just then while I came, gloriously, in that perfect vibrational pattern that lasted only ten seconds, but timed perfectly with my orgasm. It was as though those Japanese engineers had known all along when I was going to come and had only teased me with their vibrational distractions, saving this moment for me. Just for me. Yamato, Hoshi, Toshiki—whatever your names, I could French kiss you all in your white lab coats designing this marvel.

“Hello? Eloise? Eloise?” I heard Terrance’s voice from the phone under the pillow. If he said Eloise again I was going to fire up the vibrator one more time. A game.

“Hello?” he said.

Please.

“Hello?”

Please.

“Eloise?”

Rata-tat-tat.

Let’s get one thing straight.

You were probably envisioning yourself in my situation just now, going along for the ride, mentally. But unlike you, relaxed and confident on the other side of this page, I was a complete and total wreck. Just re-reading that last episode has me practically cramped up with discomfort. So, I’m going to stop with the masturbation descriptions. Let’s just say that I managed it once or twice a month, always discreetly, and leave it at that. In fact, for a long while, it went down to zero. But for a good reason.

Speaking of The Tongue, Terrance was persistent. I’d managed to hang up on him during my second exploration of the wonders of Japanese engineering, but Terrance called back an hour later, asked how the cream held up, and asked me to come into his work the next day, which I did. I mean, why the hell not, right? I was too old to get hurt, I told myself. A fling could be good if it went that far. I could do with a fling. Still, I took some work with me, just to make sure the visit wasn’t a waste of my workday, and as a kind of protection against seeming eager. As it turned out, Terrance wasn’t even there.
Pop
went that strange little hope I’d had. But before I could dip more than a toe into a surprisingly deep pool of self-pity, I saw Terrance out through the large plate glass window, locking his bicycle to a street sign. It had drizzled that morning and the streets and sidewalks were damp, the air metallic, even here in the cafe, where the ozone-thick air gusted in with his entrance. Terrance wore a long scarf around his neck, but otherwise was clean and neat: white sneakers, jeans, one stem of his sunglasses twirled around in his fingers.

“Hello,” I said, when he saw me, saw me without recognizing me. I’d done myself up a tad. There were about thirty gray hairs in my bathroom waste basket.

“Hey,” he said, nonchalantly, but then disappeared behind the counter.
Pop
. I sighed and checked the time. A little after eleven in the morning. I stared out through the windows at a street sweeper moving around the corner, its huge bristled underbelly like an insect searching for its next meal. A chair squeaked and there was Terrance, setting down a plate of diminutive chocolates and two coffees, the white foam dusted with cinnamon.

“So. You and Olivia,” he said. We were back on.

“Oh, neighbors,” I said, shading our relationship in my favor. Who has a fling with a
renter
.

“Olivia comes here all the time,” Terrance said. “Good tipper.”

“She’s the pushy type,” I said, as an excuse, an out for him.

“Pushy can be good.”

“Yeah. I don’t know. You think so?” I took a sip even though the coffee was too hot.

“So what would you like to do?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Today. What should we do?”

“You mean this is a date?” I laughed. He grinned. “So… what, you have a thing for older women…” Let’s face it, pop culture’s ugliest acronym, the
MILF
, is as big a lie as Old Saint Nick.

“
Love
older women,” he replied. “But you’re not old.”

“So no love?”

“Let’s see.”

“And you’re not gay?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“That’s gay,” I said.

“Okay. How about ‘fuck no, I’m not gay.’”

Now it was my turn to smile. “Better,” I said. “But a little
doth protest too much.
”

He laughed, and wiped his open palm across the tablecloth, even though the table was crumb free. “So? What’s the plan? What would you like to do? Where do you want to go?”

I groaned. “I hate dates. I mean, I haven’t been on one in years, but we’re just going to sit around talking and talking and then I’m going to have to work tonight just to make up for the…”

“Whoa. No pressure. Let’s just go to your place.”

“
My place?
Now it’s my turn to say
whoa
.”

Terrance laughed again, then drank half his coffee in one go. I couldn’t help but feel that his tongue must be scalded.

“What?” he said.

I was maybe staring too much. He was, as the saying goes, easy on the eyes. Maybe just a shade under cat’s pajamas, cat’s meow. (And why are so many of these descriptions of attraction tied to felines?)

Terrance licked his lips. “Listen. Let’s not waste your precious time.”

I could feel this fling going still-born. “Let’s just go to my place,” I said.

“There you go,” Terrance said, and smiled.

“But then what?” I said, then realized I’d spoken aloud.

“I’ll pleasure you like you’ve never been pleasured.”

Cue embarrassment to the
x
power: out from my mouth and down my chin came coffee and foam and then a coughing attack that sent Terrance first away, then back with a glass of water. I hadn’t realized I was so hair-trigger.

Recovered, I wiped my face, dabbed at my blouse. “Let’s just rewind fifteen seconds,” I said.

“Blzerwibpliblizrup,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Rewinding,” he said and smiled.

The geekiness was a kind of comfort, taking the edge off that tease of his.

“So let’s go,” he said. “I’ll pleasure you like you’ve never…”

This time, I was ready. “Your pick-up line could use a little…finesse,” I said, then, when he looked hurt, “look, you’re sweet and all…”

He took my hand and got up from the table. “C’mon.”

I stood and a few steps later was blinking in the bright glare under the last clouds from the morning’s rain. Terrance unlocked his bicycle, put his bike chain across his chest like a sash, and slapped the handlebar. “Hop up.”

“Hop up? Do you know how old I am?”

“Thirty-eight,” he said, “so stop playing the old lady routine.”

“That’s right,” I said, a little surprised. “Who told you?”

“Olivia.”

“Oh she did, did she?” I saw then the two of them having a conversation I hadn’t known about. I could imagine them together here in the cafe, talking, but their mouths were silent.

“But you don’t look more than thirty-two,” he said, and slapped his bicycle’s handlebar.

Liar, liar, liar.

“I haven’t done that since I was sixteen,” I said.

“Then be sixteen. All you have to do is hold on.”

And there went I, balancing awkwardly, giddy, laughing with that carefree feeling I hadn’t felt in years, and all it took was sitting on a barista’s bicycle handlebars as we rode down the street. As simple as that. If you’d been walking down the street then, mildly preoccupied with thoughts about work, or your paycheck, or the weather, and seen us passing, you wouldn’t have known that I wasn’t. Sixteen, that is.

“That was fun,” I said, when we reached the gravel drive leading to the garage and my apartment above. I hopped down.

“If you think
that
was fun,” Terrance said, walking his bicycle to the outside stairs and leaning it there. He bounded ahead of me up the stairs, the apartment seeming more his than mine.

“Just how much have you and Olivia been talking about?”

“Forget about Olivia,” he said. “This is about you.”

“She’s not paying you, is she?” I asked, but thinking,
do I care if she is?

Terrance came down the stairs and looked at me. “You’ve got some real self-image issues, don’t you?”

“Come off it,” I said. “You’re just here to slum it, then. Besides, I’m not going to sleep with you. I’m not that kind of girl. (Yeah, look where
that
got me.) And even if I were, I haven’t showered or even shaved.”

“I like a thick bush,” he said, and the keys in my hands fell to the top landing outside the door.

Ordinarily this would be about the time I’d stop what was going on. And I use
ordinarily
loosely—this kind of opportunity
never
happened to me. Because life doesn’t give you adventures so neatly wrapped. But there were mitigating factors that made me unlock the door: first, Terrance wasn’t completely a stranger—Olivia knew him. And second, it had been eighteen days since I’d last had some fun (calculated while on Terrance’s bicycle’s handlebars), and that fun had been solo, or rather, with Terrance, in a matter of speaking. Peaks forming, etc. And finally, the day so far had actually been fun.

“Just for coffee,” I said.

“And pussy,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“Sheesh, forward, aren’t you,” I said, now in the kitchen. “And no, you’re not getting any.”

I tell you, truly, conscience’s evil sister was shouting
why the fuck not. Why the fuck not fuck?

“Today anyway,” I said. I was a fond believer in the possibility of an acceptable compromise.

“Just doing my duty,” Terrance said, hands on my hips and turning me around to face him. He unbuckled my belt, pulled away my hands, then drew the belt out of each loop.

“I mean it,” I said. “I’m…”

Terrance had begun wrapping my belt around his crossed wrists. “Here, finish it and make it tight,” he said.

I frowned. “I don’t understand,” I said.

“Tighten the belt,” he said.

“You going to do a magic trick? You some kind of Houdini?”

“Do it and see.”

My hands were shaky; it took me a minute to bind his hands together.

“Okay, now watch,” he said. “You want magic? I’ll make your pants disappear.”

I stared at my pants.

“Well, you have to take them off,” he said, “I’m not
that
good.”

“Oh, come off it,” I said, and pushed away his bound hands. “I don’t even
know
you. And I told you I haven’t shaved.”

“You keep saying that. Do you have some kind of ungodly follicle issue?”

Terrance got down on his knees, proposal style. I pressed back against the kitchen counter. He was serious, I thought. And when his mouth went there on the denim of my jeans I knew I had myself a dilemma. There was, on one hand, the obvious path of seizing the moment, and then, on the other hand, I forgot the other hand. Instead, my fingers were ahead of my head. There went the button, down went the fly, off went the jeans. Terrance shuffled forward on his knees and buried his face in the crotch of my underwear. Had I unconsciously chosen the newest one from my underwear drawer earlier that day?
Had I been expecting this all along?
I asked myself.

“Oh, hey now,” I said, trying to hold Terrance’s head back a bit. My underwear was wet from his tongue. No one had ever been this direct with me before, not even my ex-husband, not even in the beginning of our relationship. And I certainly wasn’t accustomed to having a man kneeling before me, at least not in this way, bound, younger,
eager
. I felt a tug and watched as Terrance pulled down my underwear with his teeth. Given my hips, I was afraid he’d lose a tooth. And, boy, did I need to shave. I kept that thought to myself.

“Oh, don’t go there,” I said, but those were just words I no longer believed. I might as well have said,
Bananas, jellyfish, Venezuela.

“Lift yourself onto the edge of the counter,” Terrance said. I did, leaving my hands outstretched behind me on the tiles, pushing aside the unwashed breakfast plates. There was some uneaten fruit on a plate. I grabbed the melon slice and held it up.

“Melon?” I asked, ever the deflector, even now with my legs over his shoulders as he went in kissing. I took a bite as he went in more delicately. The tongue surprised me, my bite of melon spilling out onto Terrance’s hair. I brushed it out quickly and held my hands on his head to make it seem my touch’s original intent. That send him in closer.

Now, had I been ghostwriting such a scene, I’d end right there, resuming with a
later that afternoon…
or
after hours of pleasure…
and the reader would have to imagine the cunnilingus for herself. If I were polishing a manuscript and there was an oral sex scene, I’d usually recommend cutting it out, because, frankly, they’re never readable, at least not if you’ve not already got your fingers in the nether region. Also, I’m the worst person to write such a scene. I’d only written two other oral sex scenes in all the books I’d ghostwritten. Mostly, though, I would jump to the
later
or the
after
because I really didn’t know the extent of what oral sex could be, at least from personal experience. True, there’d been a guy before I met my ex, who I thought had been fantastic at it, but that had been just the one time and my memory of it was hazy. My ex had to be goaded into it, usually after I’d been more than generous on my end if you get my meaning. Reciprocity wasn’t his strong suit. But Terrance. Lordy. For this reason I feel he deserves a sizable mention in this chapter. He worked me up and down, from my perineum to my clit, but he wasn’t an equal opportunity giver. He didn’t distribute the wealth so every part of me was half-satisfied. No. He knew where I wanted his tongue most and stayed there, his tongue a mile long, it felt like, so wet, so warm, now hard, now so delicate I could barely take it. Or describe it, at least at the time.
Bananas, jellyfish, Venezuela.
He was just wild. I came, nothing spectacular, I’ll admit, but I could sense that this wasn’t it for me.