Bidding War (25 page)

"I'm sorry," I told her. "Are you getting impatient?"

"No, Pamela. I'm surprised you care."

"Of course I care. I want to understand as best I can without going to medical school myself."

She smiled and went through it again, this time in smaller pieces. I started to get it. "I won't ask you to remember all the smaller vessels," she said. "If I ever use their names with you, I'll remind you where they are."

By the time we crested the ridge over Duluth, I had absorbed as much as I was going to. Gwendolyn was smiling, but my head hurt.

"Oohhh," she said as we climbed over the ridge. All of Duluth
lay below us, and we had our first look of Lake Superior in the distance. "Wow."

"I know," I said. "One of the best views in the state." I started playing tour guide. "We'll go to Canal Park for a little while," I said. "Maybe the lift bridge will go up while we're there."

"A draw bridge?"

"Sort of." I explained the difference.

We worked our way through Duluth, then pulled off the freeway, and I found a place to park. "Grab your jacket," I told her, getting out.

We joined together and I grabbed her arm.

She loved the park. When we got out to the end of the lighthouse pier, she pressed me against the railing. "Will you let me kiss you in public?"

"Yes."

So she did. I was breathless when we were done. No one paid any attention to us.

"This is beautiful, Pamela," she said, looking out over the lake. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We had gotten very lucky. It was chilly, and down near the water was windy, but it was lovely. We were freshly out of winter, and born and bred in Minnesota, so a little cold wind didn't bother either of us."

We didn't stay at Canal Park very long. I wanted to get her to Gooseberry Falls, and depending on the timing, Split Rock Lighthouse. Then we would see.

We walked back to the car, hand in hand. At the car, she kissed me again. She tasted wonderful, and the kiss was full of promises.

My heart beat faster.

"Are you hungry?"

"A little."

"There is a cooler on the back seat," I said. "I made sandwiches, and there is fruit and soda."

Before getting into the car, we raided the cooler, setting it up front, then we both got in and I got us on the road. She gave me a half a sandwich and ate the other half herself. Then she had great fun popping grapes and strawberry slices into my mouth. I made a game of trying to kiss her fingers. She started to linger so that I could kiss them.

"It's beautiful, Pamela," Gwendolyn said again.

When we drove past the Glensheen mansion, I told her the story of Congdon murder back in the 1970s, as best I knew it.

We got a few more views of Lake Superior, then we were on the road to Two Harbors. I told her about the deer encounters you can get during the evening hours. We finally arrived at Gooseberry Falls State park and climbed out the car.

As soon as we got to the falls themselves, she was stunned. She looked at the falls, then looked at me, then at the falls. I stepped up to her and slipped under her arm.

"This is why we drove all the way up here?"

"Highlight of the trip, although the lighthouse is cool, too."

"It's amazing."

We spent an hour walking around. I got a lot of kisses, every one of them amazing. At one point we sat down on the rocks, just looking at the water falling over the upper falls. She had her back against a scraggly pine tree, and I was leaning against her with her arms around me.

"Honey," she said. "I've never done anything like this. No one else would have taken me up here, and it never would have occurred to me."

"I used to come up with my family," I told her. "It's very peaceful. I can't afford to stay in the resorts anymore, so I make do with day trips like today."

We sat like that for a while. I got my ear nuzzled a lot. It tickled, but I liked it. I looked over my shoulder at her. "It's so different being with you than with a guy."

"How so?"

"You're gentler. Softer. Less, I don't know. Driven by testosterone."

She laughed at that. "Estrogen isn't necessarily better. Men's emotions are more likely to be logical."

"Guys are so clueless."

"And you are finding I am not?"

I looked back at her again. "You knew how to treat me."

We stayed until we started to get cold. I took her to the nature center on the way to the car. She bought some postcards and stamps, wrote them in front of me, and mailed them. Then I found a little stuffed animal of a moose and bought it then gave it to her.

She offered a puzzled expression.

"The first new item for your hours," I told her. "It goes in your living room near the fireplace. Whenever you see it, you'll think of me and this trip."

"Maybe I want it in my bedroom," she said, grinning.

"No, because if you're there with someone else, you should think of her, not me. And if you're there with me, you don't need a moose to remind you."

"I never would have thought of this," she said, hugging the moose.

"This is why your designer couldn't give you a proper design. She couldn't discover your story and fill your house with things that have meaning to you. This moose will have meaning, and whenever anyone asks you about it, you have a story to tell."

She took my arm and led me back to my car. I held her door for her, and she smiled. "That's my trick."

She kept the moose on her lap as we drove out of the parking lot. I drove us to the overlook where virtually every picture of Split Rock Lighthouse is ever taken. There was one other car there.

"I've never seen a real lighthouse," she said.

"There was one at Canal Park at the end of the pier."

"I suppose, but it's not the same, is it?"

We held hands while we looked at the lighthouse. "Can we actually drive up to it?"

"Yes. There is a tour."

We drove into the park. I had a state parks sticker on my car, so the only fee was for the tour itself. We held hands the entire time, and watching Gwendolyn's expression was fun. She had completely turned off her surgeon side and was there to enjoy the day. I loved watching it.

Once we finished the tour, I told her it was time for the picnic. We collected the things from the car, and we set up in the grass right outside the lighthouse, sitting where we could look out over Lake Superior.

We ate slowly without talking much.

"This is lovely, Pamela," she told me after a while.

"I made plans for the day," I said. "But I didn't really plan anything into the evening."

"We can go to my place," she said.

"Are you going to seduce me?"

She glanced at me. "Would that be a problem?"

"Not necessarily, but then won't our third date be anti-climactic?"

"I might be willing to risk that," she said.

"I don't want to be that easy for you," I told her. "I want you to have to work for it."

She laughed. "That wasn't 'no'."

I didn't respond to that.

"We could go dancing again." She didn't sound thrilled by the idea.

"We'll be tired. Going to your house would be nice if you promise you won't try to remove a single stitch of my clothing."

"Not even your jacket?"

"Or I can drop you off when we get back to the cities."

"I will behave," she promised.

We stayed there, lying down on the blanket side by side, staring out at the lake, lightly touching, but we both started to get cold once the sun began to settle behind the hills.

"Time to go," I told her.

We packed up and were soon on our way.

It was work, but I spent the drive back to work pulling stories about her. I got her to tell me about some of her coworkers and some of her patients. I stayed away from stories about growing up. I asked her about her favorite fantasies.

"You aren't ready for those," she told me with a leer.

"Try me."

"All right." She paused. "I've always wanted to do it in a swimming pool."

"A swimming pool, hmm?" I thought about it for a moment. "I thought you'd come up with something racier."

"I didn't want to scare you."

"Would I be scared?"

"Maybe." She paused. "I don't like being vulnerable, so I usually over compensate."

She didn't add to it. "You're telling me something."

"I like to be the dominant one in the relationship, especially when the clothes start to come off."

"How dominant?"

"Very."

"So far I must trouble the crap out of you."

She laughed. "You let me lead when I lead. But yes, this is very new for me. Even letting you drive is difficult for me."

"So, if I were to let you seduce me, what would it be like?"

"Very gentle. The first time."

"Not so gentle later?"

"I'm not abusive. Nothing like that."

I thought about it for a while. "What's your longest steady relationship?"

"A long weekend."

"I thought you and that woman in Japan-"

"On again, off again, a night or a weekend at a time."

"You know you're being evasive," I accused.

"I don't want you to think I'm some sort of kinky dominatrix."

"Are you?"

She didn't answer.

"Really?"

"No. Yes. Depends on your definition. Most of my sex is pretty vanilla."

"Vanilla?"

"Lesbian normal."

"And some of the sex?"

"I've been known to be very demanding."

I sighed. "Evasive."

"I like to tie her up. Sometimes."

"With what?"

"Rope. I'm a surgeon. We're very good with knots."

I thought about her tying me up, my being unable to move, completely at her mercy.

"What would you do to me once I was helpless?"

"I'd start touching you. Teasing you. Driving you crazy with desire."

"Crazy, hmm?"

"I am very good at that. I know exactly how to touch you."

I smiled. "Then what?"

"You'd be squirming and begging."

"Begging to be untied? Begging you to stop?"

"Begging me for an orgasm."

"Are you sure?"

"My fantasy. In my fantasy, you beg."

I laughed. "All right. So once I beg, you give me an orgasm?"

"Absolutely not. I stop."

"What?!"

"And then I would tell you that you can have an orgasm only after you agree to my demands."

"Oh, now, that's naughty."

"Scared?"

"Nope. What would your demands be?"

"You would agree to be my sex slave."

"Oh, really?" I asked her.

"Yes."

"Would I agree?"

"I can be very convincing."

"Ever done this before?"

"Not with those terms, but yes. Every woman who I have tied up has begged and agreed to my demands."

"What were those demands?"

"One of them was a writer. I made that one agree to use my first name for one of her main characters in an upcoming novel."

I laughed. "Good one. Did she do it?"

"Yes."

"So, would I agree? Really, not just in your fantasy?"

"If we were to the point you let me tie you up, yes."

"Cocky."

"Confident."

"And how long would I be your slave?"

"The first time? A week."

"What would my duties be?"

"I have no idea." We laughed together. "I'd think of something."

We drove quietly for a few minutes. "What if I let you tie me up, but asked you not to carry it that far?"

"I can tease you, but not a demand that extreme?"

"Yes."

"I might make you go without panties for a week."

"Oh dear."

"Or be my servant for a dinner party."

"No."

"Hmm?"

"Whatever we do is between us and no one else. Ever."

"That's fair." She paused.
"I might forbid you wearing jeans or slacks for a week. Dresses and skirts only."

"You prefer when I appear more feminine?"

"Yes. The gown you wore was exceedingly striking."

"Thank you."

I kept her talking about this for a while. Once she loosened up, she had fun, although the suggestions she threw out grew increasingly silly. I fueled them as much as I could. Listening to her, I found myself becoming stimulated. I began to squirm a little.