Second Best Fantasy (3 page)

powers to conjure its delay. Sundays broke much too early. The minstrels dispersed one by one, leaving us to the deafening roar of morning church, synagogue, and grocery store traffic.

“Take me to your castle, my sweet prince,” Janine purred.

Glad to be home, I offered tea a-la Maggie; a combination of Japanese imported green tea laced with Crown Royal. Janine accepted, and went to examine my CD collection, which was the envy of all who knew me well enough to be invited to my apartment.

She made some selections and loaded Aretha, Janis, and, of all things, Helen Reddy into my five-chamber spinner. I watched her longingly from the threshold between my kitchen and living room. She proceeded to my bookshelves, thumbed through a copy of Blake’s “Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience” and then plopped down on my well-worn life-sucker of a couch with Joan Nestle's “A Restricted Country.”

I retreated to my bedroom to change; I’d been wearing the same clothes for way too many hours. I did my wardrobe switch, dabbed on some cologne, and returned to the living room with a Courtney Love T-shirt and plaid lounge pants in my arms as a humble offering to Janine.

“I have to go to Los Angeles on Wednesday,” she said matter-of-factly.

Okay. That left me at least two whole days with her, barring any prior commitments. I’d decided hours ago to take Trish up on her offer and secure a few days off. Synchronicity has always had a way of creeping into my life on a regular basis.

“Feel like being caretaker for a while?” she said with upraised arms.

I carefully undressed her, exploring her body as I went in time to Aretha crooning “The House that Jack Built.” She was nearly perfect for her height, more than I could claim about my own body. I noticed several interesting birthmarks on her midriff.

“The belt of Orion,” she sighed, “Makes me feel cosmically connected from time to time.”

I didn’t want to rush into sex, since I sensed this was not the last I would see of Janine Jordan. I dressed her in Courtney 14

and pants with the same care as I had undressed her. Every kiss along the way was different, in that searching, boundary-testing sort of way.

We didn’t exchange words for a long time. She lay between my thighs and I caressed her shoulders under the T-shirt as she read every passage I had highlighted in the book.

Occasionally she would read something twice, and then look up at me and gaze into my eyes without clarity, only trying to guess why particular words carried so much meaning for me. Had she asked, I would’ve confessed to nearly anything, but I suspected she enjoyed trying to figure me out without guidance.

When she’d read all of my favorite passages from cover to cover, she laid the book on my coffee table and pushed up my shirt to expose my double Ds. She encircled each nipple with nibbles and licks, pushing against my inner thighs with her weight. I was dreadfully tired and still afraid of my overwhelming emotions. But sometimes, actually often, body overrides mind, and I responded to her touch by slipping the lounge pants down over her ass. I felt the creaminess of her and wanted to melt into her arms without retreat. She remained on top, sucking on my neck and moving in rhythm against my open palm. Within minutes, she came, an automatic lifting to my ego of sexual expertise.

“I told you that you seemed like my kind of woman.”

She smiled up at me and let her hands trail over my sweatpants and the throbbing clit beneath them. I wanted her to fuck me, but knew it was inappropriate, given my state of mind. I was ruminating on a past not often dwelt upon; I couldn't focus and be in the moment with her, so the moment would have to wait.

It didn’t help matters that Helen was belting out “Angie Baby” and all I could think of was a short story based on the song I’d written when I was nineteen in my first creative writing class.

Her touch felt so good, I had an idiotic voice in my head that wanted to say “I love you” to a woman I didn’t know, a voice that crops up at the most inopportune moments because the brain so often confuses lust for undying love. Thank God I never listened to it.

15

“In time,” I said, and was abashed at sounding so sure of myself. “I mean, surely this isn’t the last time I’ll have this moment? If it is, by all means proceed.”

“If you’ll allow me the pleasure, I would like nothing more than to spend more time with you. I’ve been looking for a muse, you know,” Janine said.

“Well, I’m not sure I can live up to muse status. I have a hard time inspiring even myself, let alone someone else. But I’m a willing servant, I’ll do my best.”

I was grinning from ear to ear.

She said, “Maybe the roles will reverse. I saw a lot of empty notebooks over on your shelf.”

Maybe. I could’ve written at least twenty pages that night alone.

Typically, on a day I would wish for endless rain and thunderstorms, the sun pushed aside my bay window curtains and streamed in with harsh resonance. Despite the elements, I fell into a deep sleep with my arms around a woman I would soon discover would be the root of both my blackest and most brilliant inspirations.

16

I’ve always had a philosophy that you can gauge how interested you are in someone by what you wake up and think about the next morning.

Sometimes, you wake up groggy and can only think about your immediate responsibilities for the day, or wonder if your mom calls will she sense you’re with someone, or just plain wishing that whoever is lying next to you would wake up and get the hell out.

When I woke up the next morning on the couch with Janine, I smiled. My auto re-play had gone on all night long, and I couldn’t help internally singing “There’s a rose in Brooklyn Heights” along with Aretha’s rendition of “Spanish Harlem.” That was followed by a strong desire to cook her an extravagant breakfast, and I took a mental inventory of what was available in my fridge. Despite my nightlife, I was home often and well stocked. I went out to drink; my eating was a private matter.

You can also measure the other party’s interest in you by their “Wow, so you’re whom I had sex with last night” behavior.

Janine slept for another hour and a half after I maneuvered my way out from underneath her. That meant she was comfortable and in no hurry to get back to her responsibilities either. Not everybody likes food the moment they arise, so I made coffee and sat in my favorite leather chair and watched her sleep for a long time. For lack of a better cliché, she looked so innocent asleep. I gathered it had probably been a while since her last restful slumber. She probably dreamed about billboard charts and audience members in the first five rows.

I vaguely remembered her mentioning LA on Wednesday, but chose not to think about it. Maybe after Tuesday I would never see her again; maybe after this morning. Perhaps she would wake up, change into her clothes from the night before, and say, “Hey thanks, I had a great time. I’ll call you when I’m in town.” I hoped that wouldn’t be true, but I didn’t like to set myself up for disappointment. I prepared for the worst and started re-reading
I Was Amelia Earhart
.

17

Janine woke to the sound of my phone ringing. I thought about letting the machine get it, but decided it might be, oh, I don’t know, Ed McMahon telling me I’d won a million dollars.

It was my mother. She just called to say “hi” and remind me my niece’s birthday was next week and had I bought a card yet, she wanted some new Winnie the Pooh game thing if I had the time to shop, blah, blah, blah. I loved my mother but she sure had lousy timing. I talked to her while roaming around with the cordless, a little embarrassed. My mom brought me up to date on a variety of family matters and gossip, while I watched Janine choose a coffee mug from my rack. I was tickled when she chose the dolphin one with the tail for its handle.

I chatted for a while with Mom while Janine went back to the couch with her black coffee, stopping on her way at the bookshelf again, this time snatching
The Complete Poems of e.e. cummings
.

I swear my heart skipped a beat as I silently recited, “Your slightest look easily will unclose me…” I wanted suddenly and violently to make love to her until she came to those words inside my head. Then I realized I had actually thought and formed the words “make love to” instead of “fuck” or “bang” or even “have sex with,” something I rarely conceptualized.

“Okay, Mom, yes, I love you too. Goodbye.”

She didn’t look up or tease me, and I was grateful for that.

I was glad and proud to have two parents still married to each other for nearly 45 years. I put the phone back in its cradle and went to unload the three CDs that had been played to death since the night before.

“I don’t mind, you know. Those are three kick-ass women you’ve got there. But I know you were awake longer than me, and too many repeats of “You and Me Against the World” is probably equal to Chinese water torture.”

I chose a different Janis Joplin, an old Marianne Faithfull, and, against my better judgment, for fear of Janine seeing right through me, Joan Armatrading. I played Joan first, equally hoping Janine both would and wouldn't see the transparency of playing “Whatever’s For Us, For Us.”

18

To my surprise and delight, she arose and slow-danced with me in my living room and sang along effortlessly. My overwhelming feelings nearly brought tears to my eyes, and before the song was over, I released myself from her, feigning a need to urinate. Behind the closed door of my bathroom, I gathered my bearings and talked to myself in the mirror. I offered too much of a glimpse into the personal, private side of me, and chastised myself for not being smarter and stronger this late in life.

Composed, I returned to Janine, who was (again to my heart’s joy) sitting on the floor stroking Sebastian, my cat and the only man in my life besides relatives or co-workers. Sebastian didn’t often embrace strangers, and I found it an undeniable sign that he had buddied up so quickly. I put my terror away and sat down beside them.

“So, are you a Slimfast and yogurt woman or an eggs, toast, and sausage woman?”

“What do you think?”

“I’d put my money on the cholesterol of champions.”

“Well, you’d be right. How did you sleep? I know it’s not always easy being the pillow.”

“With these cows?” I said, cupping my breasts. “I slept better than I probably have in months.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. A look of intense thoughtfulness crept across her face. Unlike me, she was the kind of woman to choose her words carefully before she spoke.

“I think somehow that I know you, or, at least, how you are and how you might be feeling. I hope you don’t think I’m crazy for saying that. But, well, I’m not really sure what it is I want to say. I feel you may already have feelings for me, and I don’t think that’s weird or anything, because, well…” she trailed off.

I panicked. Thirty-two and still wearing my heart on my sleeve. I guessed some people really never learn. I was afraid she would disappear, and I didn’t know which was worse: to be falling so quickly for someone I hardly knew or realizing that I thought that part of me was dead when it was obviously still very much alive. It had been so long since I had made this mistake.

I hadn’t thought about a woman in terms of how she might 19

fit into the rest of my life since I was in my early twenties. And now, without warning, I was in community college in New Jersey all over again. I swore after that particularly beautiful and enamoring devil that I was destined and determined to be alone.

While I was berating myself and planning the next bottle of Scotch for later that afternoon, Janine surprised me in a way I had not been since my best friend took me to a strip club for my 25th birthday.

“Did you ever read Helen Keller?”

I retraced eons of honors English and literature classes. I had it, and tried desperately not to screw it up, “
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
” I couldn’t remember the rest.

“
The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
” She knew the quote as if it were her phone number.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, something about last night was reminiscent of more innocent times for me too. I haven’t felt this way for a long time. I don’t know which one of us is the bold or the fearful. Maybe each of us is a little bit of both.

Being involved with me isn’t easy.”

She hesitated for a moment and added, “I have references.” She smiled and it lit up my whole apartment. For the first time in a very long while, I was speechless.

There was so much I wanted to say and to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to ruin a perfect moment with my morose outlook. Always a big believer in “things that seem too good to be true usually are,” I put my reservations on the shelf, at least temporarily.

She’d just given me an opportunity to pull full steam ahead, and I planned to embrace it, for however long this fantasy would last. I refrained from telling her being involved with me wasn’t easy either. I had a handful of witnesses that would gladly testify to that.

* * * *

We orchestrated breakfast together as if we were an old 20

married couple. I couldn’t remember the last time I had shared a meal with a woman besides drunken diner escapades during the interval between heavy drinking and the promise of sex. She knew her way around a kitchen, which somewhat surprised me. I took her for a fast food junkie, and I was impressed when she chose to add fresh cilantro to our omelets. I was glad she was a coffee drinker, I honestly believe there is something mentally unbalanced in people who don’t require caffeine to kick start their day.

Cooking is a long time passion of mine, and it was nice to share breakfast with someone who didn’t drown her eggs in ketchup or pour a ton of salt on everything. We ate mostly in silence, but the list of questions I wanted to ask was growing.

“Are you bi, Janine?” Perhaps not the best choice for question number one, but it was nagging at me.