Woman on Top (11 page)

When we awoke in the master suite early to bright sunshine and the sound of the waves, I knew that Len would not be so derelict as to miss his morning run. Len was almost as compulsive as I was when it came to exercise, especially since he seemed to keep putting on weight.

“You go first. I’ll start in about fifteen minutes and catch up to you,” he offered as we put on running shorts and t-shirts. Len never wore anything under his loose fitting nylon shorts.

Since he was much stronger and faster than me, I headed out, knowing he would easily catch up. It was only seven in the morning and there were few cars and few runners to interfere with the pristine blue sky and my run. Gloria Estefan was singing “Turn the Beat Around” through my earphones, the sun was not too strong, and at first my body felt timeless. But after running three miles, I began to lose steam and finally just sat down. Len would be coming along shortly and then we could run together for a few minutes before he’d leave me in the dust.

It was quiet as I sat there waiting for him feeling kind of foolish, wishing I had more stamina. Then he appeared far in the distance. Len’s thighs were large and powerful and carried him along steadily. Watching him approach me, knowing that what drove him were not only those legs but his determination, I felt humbled and defenseless against him. As a man, he was a force that I had never encountered before, so unlike Jake, and yet his command felt irresistible. I wondered if that’s why he seemed addicted to power.

He barely smiled when he saw me, obviously concentrating on the running. I joined him as we ran on the now flat road.

“I couldn’t make it any further,” I said.

“Then meet me back at the house,” he said and ran on ahead.

So I turned around and jogged and walked my way back to his home.

•  •  •

For Len’s fifty-first birthday I arranged a weekend at The Lakes Inn in Rhinebeck, New York. We drove up late on a Friday night and after wandering down a deserted dirt road, found the charming Inn set on a lake. In the room we discovered Nineteenth Century Empire Revival furniture, a canopied bed, a fireplace, antiques, countless books lining the bookshelves and French doors overlooking the lake.

“This is even better than I had expected,” he admitted.

“I did well?”

It felt cozy and wonderful and Len started a fire. He began to take off his clothes and before long slipped into bed. He lay on the bed with his arms behind his head folded on the pillow watching me.

“Your turn,” he said.

I slowly took off my sweater, my pants, my bra, my panties. He stared at me as I stood there naked.

“Come into bed. I want you,” he ordered.

In the morning the innkeepers delivered an enormous homemade breakfast of sausages, muffins and pancakes to our room in a large wicker basket. Feeling more than satiated from sex and breakfast, I started putting on a new sheer black silk sweater with a low neckline, when Len looked at me and made a terrible face. He grabbed the sweater playfully and tried to hide it from me while I chased him around the small room. Our tug of war was very brief - he won. He had me pinned to the floor with the sweater in his hand.

Len needed me to dress modestly so he could avoid having to witness other men staring in my direction.

“I only wear what you like, so why won’t you do the same for me?” he asked.

We were giggling while the sexual tension mounted.

“I surrender, I surrender. I won’t wear the sweater!” I conceded.

That day we wandered around the quaint town and then ended up in a small bookstore. I took Len to the section on sexuality and picked up a copy of
Top Sexual Positions.

“I’m buying this. We can try each position between now and tomorrow,” I coyly offered.

“I can’t pay for it. I’m too embarrassed,” he whispered.

“I’m not.”

I took the book up to the counter and paid while Len hid behind one of the rows of bookshelves. And when I left the store, he followed behind quickly.

“You’re a fifty-one-year old man with the sexual soul of a sixteen-year old boy,” I said as we headed for the car.

“Judy was a virgin when we married. We dated from the time we were sixteen but we wanted her to be a virgin.”

“How did you survive so long without doing it?”

“I don’t know but I thought when she died I’d get my chance to play around. And then I met you.” Len responded.

I was about to ask him if that would be the fatal flaw in our relationship. Len needed to fulfill some of his fantasies and see what may be out there. It may not have been better sex than he was having with me, but he wouldn’t know that. When he gawked at other women, and he did it often, he left me feeling inadequate. But I decided against going down that painful road in the midst of our weekend away.

We took the manual back to the Inn. While we were lying naked in bed and leafing through the pages, we found one that looked promising and tried it out. Len was certainly a new man in bed, experimenting, uninhibited.

It was pouring that night when we left the Inn for dinner. Since it was his birthday, I retrieved the car from the parking lot, held the umbrella for Len as I escorted him from the Inn to the car and then chauffeured him to the restaurant. He had no qualms about being catered to whether in bed or anywhere else.

“You make me feel like a king. And I love being king.”

Len’s birthday fell a month to the day after the first anniversary of Judy’s death. I thought of what an enormous milestone that day had been for me. But Len had telescoped into several months what had taken me years.

We ate in a nearby Italian restaurant that looked very mundane, especially after the panoply of spectacular restaurants we were experiencing with Len’s friends in New York. This was not Len’s kind of place. But he drank four glasses of Pinot Noir at dinner and was in high spirits. By the time dessert came he was giddy.

He looked at me dreamily for a moment or two.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I love you,” he said.

Stunned, I didn’t say a word.

He continued, “I’ve been tempted to tell you so many times. I’ve loved you for a long time.”

“I love you,” I said.

“I’ve thought it a hundred times. I’ve whispered it to you when we made love,” he responded.

I felt overwhelmed at this point, having witnessed a side of Len few people ever saw.

“Do you remember I said there would be some surprises in our relationship?” he asked.

“Yes, you told me that you’re really six feet tall.”

“I want to tell you about the biggest one tonight. I am really very rich.”

He appeared also very drunk.

“I have about seventy-five million dollars in my accounts.”

I didn’t know what he wanted me to value more, that he loved me or that he was really wealthy? Or was I that awfully lucky woman who had found a rich man and he loved me? It was supposed to be, of course, the best of all possible worlds.

“I bet the people in here don’t have a clue how rich I am,” he said as we walked out of the restaurant.

I drove his car through the pouring rain down the dirt road back to the Inn. At one point I pulled over and looked at Len, with his seat pushed all the way down to relax his drunken body. Leaning over, I began to kiss and undress him and myself and climbed on top of him to make love.

On the following Monday morning, a massive arrangement of roses, peonies and calla lilies was delivered to my desk at work.

“I hope I’ve made you as happy as you’ve made me. Thanks for a wonderful weekend and the best birthday ever. Love, Len.”

While my colleagues marveled at the flowers, I sat daydreaming, enjoying my reflection in Len’s eyes. The flattery from him was constant and filled with words like fun, smart, fabulous mother, sexy and sweet. It felt hard to resist that reflection, given that I had not seen, or at least had not been willing to acknowledge, such desire and flattery since Jake.

Next to my briefcase on the desk sat the latest edition of
New York
magazine. Turning to the back of the magazine, I began looking through the personal ads. Just as quickly, I closed the magazine and smiled at my flowers. Len had provided a way out of that singles world and I was hoping to never enter it again.

CHAPTER 13

October

O
n the list of people who were anxious to meet my new man, Jason and Elizabeth, two of my closest friends from Connecticut, ranked high.

Jason had interviewed me for my first job after passing the Bar, and within seconds of meeting him I knew I had landed in the right place. The first time I met him he radiated a warmth and kindness that struck a deep familiarity inside me. It took a few weeks to realize he reminded me of Jake.

After spending eight years as a mother, wife and caretaker, my legal skills were not rusty, they were untested. Yet it was Jason’s gentle prodding that led me into that world that lawyers inhabit, and after a year under his wing, I was well on my way. His endless patience would leave me always feeling grateful to him.

His wife, Elizabeth, who maintained an Isabella Rossellini beauty, once worked as a prosecutor under Giuliani. She had later gone on to become an associate at one of the premier New York white shoe law firms, but would end up in-house just like the rest of us - shunning the big bucks to spend time with her two little girls.

We met at Smith’s, an old, tiny, dark wood paneled restaurant overlooking the Connecticut River. The ceiling was low, the light fixtures hung even lower and the tables were dark wood with wooden spindle chairs.

“So Len, I hear you get to handle some interesting deals,” Jason began.

“Yes,” Len said.

“Must be quite a trip to be involved with deals that of that size,” Jason tried again.

“Yes.”

“I worked at St. Clair, James for a while and did some myself. The hours were exhausting. You must have a lot of stamina,” Elizabeth offered.

“I do.”

“I hear you have three great kids,” Jason said.

“Yes, three great kids.”

Silence for a moment as Jason, Elizabeth and I glanced at each other.

“I hear you live in New Jersey. I grew up there,” Elizabeth said.

Len remained silent.

“Elizabeth, I’m going to the ladies room. Want to come?” I asked.

Once we were at a safe distance from the table, Elizabeth asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. He certainly doesn’t act like this with his friends,” I said baffled and embarrassed by his behavior.

“Do you think we’re not rich enough, not successful enough?”

What if she were right?

“He must be in a bad mood,” I prayed.

So I tried again. Different friends, maybe a different outcome. The following week we arranged to meet up after work with my friends, Ann and Patrick, for dinner at Aquavit, the latest restaurant to be rewarded with three stars by the
New York Times.

Delayed fifteen minutes en route, I found Len standing outside the restaurant on the sidewalk.

“You’re late.”

“I know. The traffic was awful.”

“People don’t keep me waiting, you know,” he said.

“I’m not people, you know.”

He stepped back and stiffly held the door open for me. We found Ann and Patrick standing in the alcove. The atrium of the restaurant shimmered with glass and a waterfall. The bar looked packed with twenty-something singles.

Ann, a charming conversationalist, was a tall, elegant lawyer who had worked for years at Pointer, one of the prestigious New York law firms Len used for his deals. Len had no choice but to approve of her. He later told me that one of his very prominent friends knew of her.

“Kate must be okay if she’s friends with Ann,” his friend had said.

Her husband Patrick was infamous for his big heart and extreme political views. We had been arguing for years, ever since he had tried to convince seven-year old Chloe to vote for Pat Buchanan.

“Ann, I hear you work with Steve. He’s a great lawyer. I’ve done a lot of work with him, noteworthy deals. He’s been invaluable. Tough guy,” Len said.

“He is sharp. Have you worked with Don?” Ann asked.

“Don is the man you want at your side. He will never back down. Great team at your firm,” Len replied.

After Len had consumed a few too many glasses of wine and had run out of war stories from work, he told Ann one more in his arsenal of tough guy tales.

“A guy hit my car about ten years ago, just a minor fender-bender. It might have been a big nothing, but I didn’t like his attitude. So I pursued him, and I mean for years. In the end, I spent about fifty thousand in legal fees to screw this guy. I didn’t care how long it took or how much it cost. For me, revenge is best served cold.”

When we had ordered espresso, Len excused himself to go to the men’s room. As soon as he appeared out of earshot I began, not able to withstand the urge any longer.