Tessa's Escape to Athena's Ground (6 page)

-12-

David, just a quick report from Australia! Had breakfast out this morning and saw some sights. Sydney is far more complex than I ever knew. It’s an interesting mixture of cosmopolitan and down-home. The weather is great…hate to rub it in since the weather report on line says Chicago is 36° and overcast. Sorry : - (

I’m going to the beach this afternoon. Have to leave in a few minutes. I’ll write more when I have time.

Yours, Tessa

PS: thanks again for understanding

***

“I thought Bondi Beach was the main beach in Sydney,” Tessa said.

“It is the most well-known, and it is beautiful. But Bondi won’t provide quite the experience I’m looking for, so…” Jason held Tessa’s hand as they stepped off the ferry, “welcome to Watson’s Bay.”

Tessa looked around. “Where’s the beach?”

Jason laughed. “Patience, patience. And follow me.”

Jason led Tessa through a place called Camp Cove, up some stairs and past some old gun emplacements. “They were erected during the war,” Jason explained. After a few minutes, they arrived at the top of another beach.

“Welcome to Lady Jane Beach,” Jason said, smiling. “It’s a great place for some sun, some beautiful swimming, and freedom.”

Tessa understood the first two things. Sun and swimming; who wouldn’t want that at a beach. She was about to ask for an explanation of the third when her eyes found the answer to the question forming on her lips.

“Jason! This is a nude beach.”

“That it is my lady. Shall we?” Jason motioned for Tessa to step ahead. “It’s the middle of the week, so not as crowded as it could be, though lots have the time off for holiday. Still…” Jason pointed to a spot. “Over there. Not too crowded.”

Jason unfolded a large blanket and motioned for Tessa to sit. “I have cold water and diet soda and sunscreen. Don’t want to burn those sensitive spots that aren’t used to seeing sun.” His smile was wicked and Tessa blushed.

“I will not be taking off my clothes.” She looked around at the naked buns and naked boobs, not all of them particularly pretty.

“Suit yourself.” Jason stripped off his tee shirt. “How about you help me out here?” He handed Tessa the sunscreen and turned his back to her. “I’ll do the same for you. If. You. Ask. For. It.” He winked.

After they’d both slathered up in sunscreen, Jason invited Tessa to a swim. “The water here is wonderful. Come on.”

Tessa waded waist high into the blue with Jason right behind her.

“This is great,” she said, taking in the view. “Your country is beautiful.”

Instead of an answer, she felt Jason’s arms slide around her waist. He pulled her gently against him and rested his chin on top of her head. “It’s not the only thing of beauty here. This morning was getting-to-know-you. This afternoon is about taking it the next step. Why do you think I took you to a nude beach, Tessa?”

“Because you want to get me naked?”

Jason squeezed her a little tighter. “Getting naked or not is totally up to you. That wasn’t my reason. Try again.”

Tessa turned her head back toward the beach. Old. Young. Men. Women. Skinny. Not so skinny. All kinds and colors and genders and, from the looks of it, sexual orientations. The only thing that was common to all of them was that they seemed relaxed just as they were; naked and no big deal.

“You want me to see that normal people can be comfortable in their own skin.”

“Bravo. You get an A. Tessa, you are at a free beach with a man who will not judge you, who will do whatever you tell him you need, as long as it doesn’t endanger life and limb or get me tossed in jail.” He slid one of his hands into the water. A moment later, it came to rest on Tessa’s belly. A finger wiggled underneath the top of Tessa’s bikini bottom. He tickled the skin just below her belly button. “Ask for what you need.”

Tessa felt everything at once. The cool ocean water that lapped above her waist. The tease of Jason’s finger, under the water and skimming just under the top of her bikini bottoms. The growing heat in what she’d begun to think of as her sweet spot. The feel of Jason’s growing physical response to her, hard against her bottom.
Ask for what I need
, she thought.

“I’m not ready to show my naked self to the world,” Tessa said, “but I’d like to feel the ocean on my bottom.”

“Be more specific in your request.”

Tessa stepped on Jason’s foot.

“Ouch!” He playfully pulled on her hair.

“I want you to slide my bikini bottoms off.”

“Just so you can feel the ocean? Or is there something else you’d like to feel?”

He was going to make her ask. Damn it.

“The ocean, yes. But not just the ocean.”

“Tess-Ah…ask for what you need.”

“What you did this morning was really great. I want more of that. But I also want to know what it feels like if you go inside. With your fingers!”

“You’ve not experienced that before?”

Mark had done a little of that, but when Tessa failed to become excited by it, he gave it up. For the majority of their marriage, he simply got hard, got in, came and got out. Tessa wanted more than that now.

“My husband didn’t get a great response from me in the first year we were married. So he stopped trying.”

Jason’s hands were already sliding Tessa’s bottoms off. He held her steady while she lifted each foot free and then he tucked her bottoms in the waistband of his trunks.

“Relax, Tessa,” he said as he pulled her close to him. “Just look straight ahead at the beautiful water. Feel me against your backside?”

She nodded.

“I will keep you steady. Don’t worry about the waves or the sand under your feet. Don’t worry about anything. Let yourself go. Trust me.”

“I do,” Tessa said. Even though she’d only known Jason a few hours, she did trust him. Of course, she also knew Carmen would never entrust her to someone who wasn’t worthy.

Jason nudged Tessa’s feet into a wider stance. “Feel the water cooling your heat? I’m going to put a stop to that now.” Jason kept Tessa steady with one arm while his other plunged underwater. His hand found Tessa’s mound and began caressing it. His finger slid up and down her slit, teasing her, until it settled on her clit. He began drawing circles around it with his finger, pressing harder and harder until he heard Tessa’s breath change.

“Feel good?”

“Mmmmm,” Tessa said, softly.

After a few minutes with Jason’s magic fingers, Tessa thought she might explode, like at the café, except better. She couldn’t explain it, but it felt like the ocean had climbed inside her. She was beginning to feel waves, small but growing. It was nice, but something was missing.

And then Jason supplied it.

“Lean back against me and wrap your arms around my waist, if you can. I need both of my hands free.” Jason nudged her legs further apart and spread her lips apart with one hand while the other continued to stroke her clitoris. “Relax now,” he said, as he gently pushed a finger past Tessa’s lips. He stopped just an inch inside and said, “Okay?”

Tessa nodded. She could feel herself defensively tensing, and she hated that the talk therapy she’d done for so many months—all those ‘ah ha’ moments she thought she’d committed to memory, hadn’t become part of her muscle memory.

Jason continued to stimulate Tessa’s clitoris, focusing on the powerful pleasure it brought to her. He listened to her breathing and felt her hips rise to meet the pressure of his fingers, like two partners dancing. While Tessa remained focused on the building sensation, Jason slowly, steadily pushed his finger deeper inside her. When the full length of his long, muscular finger was inside, he whispered into her ear.

“How do you feel?”

Tessa murmured something. It could have been English or Esperanto for all it mattered; the word was unintelligible, but the passion behind it was clear.

Jason began to move his finger in and out, careful not to disrupt the dance between his fingers and Tessa’s clitoris. As she responded, he drove his finger into her harder and faster. She moaned and wiggled, grinding her pelvis at Jason’s fingers.

“Oh God, please don’t stop,” she cried.

Jason whispered that he would not stop until she had come. “Stay with the sensation, Tessa. Stay with it.” Her eyes were closed, so Jason couldn’t judge her excitement by pupil dilation, but her breath was rapid and the cleavage above her bikini top was a rosy flush. She was close.

He tipped his head down and kissed Tessa’s breast, just above her bathing suit top.

“Oh! That’s so good!”

“Stay with it, you’re almost there.”

And almost before he finished the sentence, she was. Tessa’s vaginal muscles clamped around Jason’s moving finger and she began to spasm so violently there was no question. For the first time in Tessa’s life, she didn’t care how improper it might be or who might overhear her.

“Ohhhh … my… God,” she shouted between pants.

Jason held her firmly until she stopped panting and opened her eyes. When she did, he playfully tousled her hair. “And that, Tessa, is fireworks.”

-13-

Tessa held onto Jason’s shoulder while he slid her bikini bottoms back into place.

“Do you feel like a little swim?”

“A very little one. I’m surprisingly…tired.”

Jason laughed. “You worked for it. Was it worth it?”

Tessa smiled. “Is the Pope Catholic?”

The two floated in the cool water for a few minutes and then made their way back to the blanket. On the walk back, Jason wrapped his arm around her and rested his hand on her backside. When she didn’t object, he slid part of his hand under her bikini bottom and gently stroked the smooth skin of her left cheek until they reached the blanket.

“How about a cold drink?” Jason said, lifting a bottle of water in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other.

Tessa asked for the soda. Jason twisted the cap off with a flourish and handed her the bottle.

“Such a gentleman,” Tessa said. “And a gentle man.”

Jason actually blushed.

They sipped a cold drink and Jason talked about Sydney. “I’ve been to the States once,” he said. “L.A. But I suppose that’s a lot different from New York.”

“Yes. Did you like L.A.?”

“Very much. I’d like to visit more of America someday. There’s a lot to learn by traveling.”

Tessa thought about what she’d learned over the past six hours, and grinned. “Yeah. I had to come all the way to Australia to…”

“Come.”

They both laughed.

“If I can be serious for a minute,” Jason said, “I want to talk about what happened out there in the ocean. I think we just demonstrated there is nothing wrong with your body. It knows how to respond to the right stimulus. The trick is to get the right stimulus and stick with it while your body opens up to it. That’s another way of saying…?”

“Ask for what you need.”

Jason lifted his bottled water as if toasting Tessa.

“Tonight, we will have our last session, you and I.”

Tessa frowned. She was really beginning to trust Jason.

“No frowning allowed!” he said playfully. “It will be a great session, still focusing on asking for what you need. It will be more intimate, so I want to prepare you for that.”

“Intimate as in...?”

“Carmen’s therapeutic plan has several goals. We achieved the first one, out there in the beautiful Pacific.”

Tessa blushed, but smiled too.

“But I understand there is an issue you need some closure on.” Jason looked into Tessa’s eyes and dropped his voice to almost a whisper. “You told Carmen what your husband died doing, with another woman. You seemed to feel it was, in part, your fault because you never allowed him to do that to you.”

Tessa’s blush deepened, and she lost her smile.

“I’m sure Carmen tried to get you to let yourself off the hook there. Because you didn’t give it didn’t excuse his getting it elsewhere. That was a mega breach of trust.”

Tessa nodded. She knew that, in her head. Her heart, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure.

“I understand that you’ve been working hard these past few months, and that you’ve realized you aren’t satisfied with the narrow sexual definition you’ve lived with all your adult life.”

“I used to think that practically anything other than simple missionary position was either twisted, gross or beyond my ability to do. I don’t think that anymore. But I don’t know which things are right for me, and which aren’t.”

“That’s what you’ve come to Australia to discover.” Jason stroked her arm gently with the finger that, minutes ago, had given Tessa the most sexual pleasure she’d ever experienced. “Tonight I will press you to try two things. I will always respect your right to decline, but I’m going to put some pressure on you, based on what you
said
you wanted in therapy.”

“That was back in the safety of Carmen’s office,” Tessa said. Though her voice was light, she wasn’t entirely joking.

“But you’ll be in the safety of Jason’s arms,” he said, lightly, but also not joking. “Don’t forget that.”

“What two things? Or is it better if I don’t know?”

Jason scooted closer to Tessa and gently stroked the inside of her thigh. “I’m going to show you how pleasurable it is to let a man kiss your clitoris.”

Kissing it didn’t sound so bad, Tessa thought, but she knew there was more to it than that.

“Just kiss?”

Jason’s eyes twinkled. “Nailed me on that one, didn’t you! They’ll be sucking and licking involved. And if you’re up to it, maybe a gentle nibble or two.”

Tessa laughed, but it didn’t disguise her nervousness.

“What’s the second thing?”

“Let’s leave that a surprise, okay?”

They gathered their things and headed back to the ferry. By the time Jason pulled up to the Westberg entrance, Tessa was a mixture of fear, joy, anticipation and dread.

“Dinner will be in your room at 8:00. I’ve already made arrangements with room service. Have a rest and see you in a few hours.”

***

Tessa, the report from Australia sounds good! I’m jealous that it’s beach weather there, though if this keeps up we’ll have a beautiful white New Year’s (even if it’s a beautifully COLD one :) I did a quick Google and read that in Australia you can get a pretty good sunburn in less than fifteen minutes. Soak in some sunblock before you head to the beach! Well, lunch break is over so back to work.

Yours, David.

Tessa smiled and hit reply.

Hey David! Thought of you in 36° weather this afternoon as I waded into the Aussie side of the Pacific. I slathered on the sunblock, but still got a little pink…

Tessa paused, and chuckled. She’d gotten very pink, but not from sun exposure. David didn’t need to know that.

…but nothing bad. In fact the afternoon was a success. The ocean is a good place to be reminded that there’s a big world out there. When I remember that, as I did this afternoon, my problems seem a whole lot smaller. I’m doing some more reflection and work this evening, so probably won’t get a chance to email you until tomorrow.

Have a good night. Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite. (If they do, I suggest Terminix.)

Tessa.

Tessa scanned her work email. No emergencies, thank goodness, but lots of activity. Her staff had already taken calls from buyers at Macys and Dillards; they wanted to know whether Tessa had plans to add accessories to her line. Dillards also wanted to know if Tessa would be interested in creating a group or single design each season for them, on an exclusive basis. Tessa’s business was certainly heating up and it felt good, if a little overwhelming. It was clear she’d be putting in some long hours when she got home.

Tessa turned off her laptop and slid it away from her. The first thing she’d done when she got back to the hotel was take a long, warm shower. She shampooed her hair, lathered every inch of her skin, twice, and shaved her legs (again). She towel dried her hair, moisturized herself from nose to toes, and decided to take a quick look at email before getting ready for her appointment with Jason. Since the appointment was here in her room, which scared her more than a little bit, she had plenty of time to get ready. She stretched out on top of her king sized bed and mentally went through her closet. Was the green dress trying too hard? Were the white capris with the simple pink tunic too casual? The sun and sand, added to the stress of her ‘water aerobics,’ resulted in one tired woman.
Just for five minutes
, Tessa thought, as she closed her eyes.