Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (12 page)

Roger’s dismay, I loved my closet—filled with tiny little sun-

dresses, stiletto sandals, and a different bathing suit for every day of the week. My work outfits were admittedly a bit more

subdued—mostly pastel-hued skirt suits—but off camera,

my clothes were my own. While Roger described his jackets

in terms of the type of storm-protection each one offered, my

clothing could mostly be divided by levels of transparency—

sheer, diaphanous, translucent. I owned tiny crocheted sweaters in ice cream colors to wear whenever a chill crept in.

“Chill,” Roger had said with scorn. “Try a windchill factor

of negative forty. Jesus, Michelle, it’s not even
positive
forty here.

It’s sixty-nine. You can’t be cold.”

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“Sixty-nine,” I’d said, grinning, “the perfect temperature for

fucking.”

But Roger had remained in his unhappy place, flicking from

one weather report to the next, and I’d had to warm up my-

self. Retreating to the bedroom, I’d imagined that I was a snow bunny, that Roger was watching me make snow angels, that he

fucked me in that sea of powdery pearlescent whiteness. The

snow was sublime in my daydream, glittering like shaved glass,

soft as eiderdown. And then there was me . . . Naked? No.

All Roger’s talk about weather gear had put a momentary

crimp on my fantasy. Then my mind conjured up a comely lilac

snowsuit, with a zipper that ran from neck to the split between my legs. The teeth of the zipper were a dark fuchsia, matching the panties I had on beneath. Hot pink against my tanned

skin—a delicious contrast.

Behind my shut lids, I’d imagined Roger undoing the zipper

with his teeth, slowly revealing my skin inch by inch, his scruffy five o’clock shadow scraping dangerously against my soft flesh.

Then he spread open the suit and kissed my breasts, licked my

nipples until they stood up hard as gumdrops.

I didn’t stop to worry why the Roger in my fantasy looked so

much like Jeremiah Cooper, the handsome actor-slash-bartender

who worked at 5th Avenue, my favorite Santa Monica bar. At

least, I didn’t worry at first. I simply accepted the fact that tall, green-eyed Jeremiah was serving me a round of pleasure the

same careful way he served me and my best friend drinks every

Friday night. His long wheat-blond hair felt silk-soft against

my thighs. His strong fingers danced over my clit in a way that brought an instant moan to my lips.

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God, he was good.

Jeremiah had on snow gear of his own, a pair of those sexy

oatmeal-colored long johns that look delicious on trim, hard

bodies, and mirrored wraparound shades to show me my own

reflection. Watching my lips part, my eyes widen, turned me on in my daydream almost as much as the imaginary feel of Jeremiah’s body against mine. But as the tempo speeded up, my

own fingers working through my satiny bikini panties, I tried to push his face away, replacing Jeremiah’s long blond mane with

Roger’s short brown curls, transforming Jeremiah’s light green

eyes into Roger’s dark blue ones, exchanging Jeremiah’s strong

body with . . .

No, it wouldn’t hurt to keep Jeremiah’s body for the little

jill-off session, would it? That didn’t make me too superficial, did it?

In my dreamworld, I imagined Roger fucking me hard, driv-

ing into me, the way he had when we’d first gotten together.

Our first night had been the fabric of dreams, with Roger driv-

ing me in his rented convertible up to the Hills. We had made

love outdoors, staring down at the flickering lights of Hol-

lywood. I hadn’t been introduced his distaste for the weather

then, had admired his writing, devoured his uncanny comedic

beats. He’d looked East Coast intellectual, which has always

been exotic to me, since I’d grown up surrounded by surfer boy

sloths. But now, he’d taken that look to the extreme—becom-

ing pale-skinned and hollow-eyed, boycotting the sunlight as

if he might melt.

“Sitcom writers don’t have to be pretty,” he liked to say, ap-

parently striving to prove his point.

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“Neither do weather girls,” I always shot back, then laughed

because we both knew that wasn’t true.

My cell phone rang—“Cold as Ice.” I’d programmed the song to

make Roger happy, to show him we were in the season together.

Wistfully, I slowed to a gentle roll, then pulled the tiny device from the strap on my skate and looked at the number, hoping

Roger had shaken off his storm clouds, that he was wooing me

back for an afternoon romp in the middle of the living room.

But it was my best friend, Carolyn.

“Roger still in a funk?” she asked.

I zigzagged to avoid some tourists—clearly out-of-towners

because of the unattractive zinc oxide each one sported. “It’s

sweet that he’s so emotional, right?”

“If I hear those carols again when I come over—‘Let It Snow.’

‘White Christmas.’ ‘Winter Wonderland,’ someone’s going to

get a jingle bell shoved up his—”

“I’ve dated worse,” I reminded her, thinking about my re-

cent string of losers: the high-rolling gambler who’d made a bet with himself that he could fuck my last roommate. He’d won

the bet and lost me. Or the yoga instructor who could bend

himself into all sorts of erotic difficult-to-master shapes, but didn’t want to screw me because it would mess with his
chi
. “He’s simply one of those people who’s affected by the weather,” I said into Carolyn’s meaningful radio silence.

“It’s not the weather that’s the problem,” Carolyn said em-

phatically before ending the call.

I knew she thought I should cut my losses and move on. But

I’d moved on quickly my whole life, my relationship history a

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colorful blur like a ride on a whirligig at an amusement park. I’d sworn after my last devastating break-up that I’d give my next

relationship a chance. Twelve months to succeed or fail. With

100 pecent of my effort, windchill factor or no.

As I rounded the loop and turned back toward home, I devel-

oped a new idea. Perhaps if I could make Roger see how lovely

a sun-drenched winter could be, I’d be able convert him. Maybe

he could turn his back on his beloved East Coast, become an

expatriate, like Hemingway in the Paris of the 1920s. Only in-

stead of sitting in precious French cafés smoking Gitanes and

drinking absinthe, he would grow his hair long, buy some board

shorts, wear a Sex-Wax T-shirt

I cruised into the apartment like hell on wheels.

“Fuck me on my blades,” I begged. “Pretend you’re doing Mrs.

Claus, if that will help you any.” But Roger didn’t even glance my way. He was staring fixedly at a movie on his computer.

“Come on, Rog,” I urged. “You can spin me any way you

want. You can do me up against the window, and let people

watch. All you have to do is pull the ties on my bikini, and I’ll be naked.”

No response.

When I got closer, I saw that he was watching
Alive,
watching with a look of utter dreaminess, as if this were a travel in-fomercial for Aspen rather than a tragic tale of cannibalism in the Andes. Peeking over his shoulder, I followed along with

him for a moment, and a real shiver worked it’s way down my

spine. Roger didn’t notice. He seemed totally mesmerized by

the scenario.

“Look,” he said softly. “Look at all that snow.”

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*

*

*

“What is it about the winter?” I asked Roger the next day.

“Women are all dressed up. You don’t know what they look

like underneath. Here in L.A., it’s like a skin parade twenty-four-hours a day. There’s no mystery. No wishful thinking about spring when the short skirts come out, when the girls strip off those outer layers and let their real selves show through.”

Wow. Here was the first man I’d ever met who didn’t like

women displaying their bodies. He was unique. That’s what I

told myself. He was special.

“There’s no cuddling by the fire. No hot chocolate or hot

toddies. No chestnuts, Shelly. There’s no fucking chestnuts.”

His deep blue eyes pleaded with me to understand.

So I tried again. I borrowed winter gear from Carolyn, who

likes to go to cold places as much as I like to stay in warm ones.

I dressed myself up in layers upon layers, ending with a purpleand-orange stripy scarf and a hat with earflaps. I checked myself from all angles. I’ve dated my fill of kinky players in the past, but this was a whole new appearance for me. I no longer looked

like Michelle. I looked like the Michelin Man.

I put the finishing touches on the apartment and waited for

Roger to arrive. While I stood there, flushed all over, the sweat pooling at the base of my spine, I thought about what would

happen when Roger arrived: I would open the door. Roger

would see me all bundled up. He would undress me slowly, care-

fully, unzipping my down jacket, unwrapping the scarf from

around my neck, pulling the turtleneck over my head, removing

the heavy outerwear until he discovered the cotton-candy pink

bikini beneath all of that wool. That was my way of remaining

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true to myself—the bathing suit under the winter gear, like a

pearl inside a Gore-Tex-wrapped oyster.

The thought got me wet. Did Roger have a point? Maybe

L.A. women
are
too loose with their bodies. Maybe mystery
was
the way to go. After all of those years of draping myself in diaphanous outfits, perhaps what I ought to have been doing is

dressing more conservatively, so that my admirers might ogle me in opaque, fantasizing about the slow striptease reveal.

Burning up with heat, I jumped at the sound of Roger’s fist

knocking on the door. I whipped open the front door and stood

before him.

“Michelle?” he seemed confused.

“I did what you said.” I grinned, hoping I looked seductive

and not like a bright blue marshmallow.

Roger blinked. Then he sneezed.

“I know that neither of us can take time off to go East,” I

rushed on as Roger continued to stare at me, apparently dumb-

founded. “So I brought the snow to us.”

“That’s
not
snow!” he said, growing visibly more alarmed by the second.

“Well, I couldn’t actually get snow,” I explained as patiently

as possible. “Or make it snow,” I added, hoping he’d remember I wasn’t the magical character in his sitcom. “So I used feathers.”

“I’m allergic, Michelle,” he was backing out of the apartment

as he spoke.

“I’m sorry,” I squeaked as he left, his blue eyes streaming. “I had no idea.”

“Call me when it’s clean,” he yelled from down the hall.

I sprinted after him, moving as fast as I could all bundled

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up like that. How did people walk in snow clothes? I could sail along blithely on my blades, but this was different. Still, I managed to catch up with Roger at the front door of the apartment

building. He was sneezing uncontrollably now, and he seemed

to be trying to find his car by the sound of his alarm beeper,

pressing his thumb on the round button on his key ring and

pointing randomly out at the street.

“It’s not the same when it’s a hundred degrees outside,” he

said, eyes watering.

Dejectedly, I reached into my pocket and handed him the

tin of chestnuts, and he gave me a sad little half-smile through weepy eyes and said, “Not water chestnuts, Shelly. Not water

chestnuts.”

Back in my apartment, I spent fifteen minutes getting my own

self out of the silly outfit before calling Carolyn. This wasn’t how my dream date was supposed to end. My buddy, who had

loaned me the gear without questions, now seemed filled to the

brim with them.

“Explain it again, Michelle. What did you do?”

“I wanted to be like the queen in that fable who tucked a

tiny pea under twenty tall mattresses. I hid my body beneath all these layers of clothes. All he had to do was peel me.”

“You’re a woman,” Carolyn interrupted. “Not a banana.”

“I hate winter,” I added despondently, planning on spending

the rest of the evening vacuuming my pad. But Carolyn insisted

I meet her for an emergency drink at 5th Avenue. Feathers or

frilly cocktails? That was an easy decision.

“Why would you go to all that trouble?” Carolyn wanted to

know.

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“I thought maybe he had that type of disease people get in

Alaska, where the sun doesn’t come up for six months and they

have to wear those hats with little lamps on their heads.”

“Yeah,
that’s
his problem,” Carolyn snorted into her empty glass.

“No, I think Roger has the reverse,” I told Carolyn. “He

needs a hat that snows.”

“He needs a kick in the—”

“Seriously,” I interrupted her.

“I’m
being
serious,” she countered quickly as Jeremiah brought over our second round of drinks, Flaming Flamingos made