Slow Hand (15 page)

His hands, long-fingered, strong and clever, moved over my body as we kissed, at first shy, but then, as I clung to him fiercely, making no attempt to push him off, becoming bolder. He was quickly impatient with the barriers of my clothes, which were little enough: a cotton blouse, a short summer skirt and underwear, my legs bare, naked feet strapped into leather sandals. One of his hands, which had returned again and again to cup and trace lazy patterns of arousal on my bound and covered breasts, now began swiftly and without fumbling to
unbutton my blouse, while his other hand, behind me, was pushing up my skirt and tugging at the elastic of my panties. In a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, he could have me stripped naked.

I wanted nothing better than to be naked in his capable hands, but not here, in public, surrounded by strangers—was he crazy?“No,” I gasped and pushed him off and pulled away, struggling to refasten my buttons.

He reached for me again, and I slapped at his hands. He looked stricken.“I want you. Don’t you—?”

I laughed.“Not here, be reasonable!” There were people all around us, getting in and out of cars, overflow customers from the bar and people from the neighborhood out for a breath of air, drinking beer from six-packs purchased at the convenience store across the street. This parking lot and the whole street was like a fair or a carnival, an impromptu, open-air party to celebrate summer in the city. I waved a hand to indicate the crowd passion had temporarily hidden from us, and as if I’d waved away smoke we both saw, at the same time, a man and woman locked in a fervent embrace just yards away from us. As I stared, I realized that the woman had one hand inside the front of the man’s trousers.

My stranger grinned at me, a wide, white, wolfish smile. He put his hands on my hips and pulled me tightly to him. His erection felt enormous. His breath hot in my ear, he whispered,“Nobody’s going to notice. Nobody’ll care.”

It was true nobody else seemed to notice the passionate couple, or, if they did, they politely pretended not to see. Other people had their own concerns; why should they care? Nor would it have been different if the lovers had been of the same sex. The Montrose was the most Bohemian and most sexually tolerant area of Houston, which was why I had chosen it for my escape that night. It provided a place where I could temporarily forget who and where I was and become a stranger, pretending I was a free woman at large in San Francisco, New Orleans, or Paris.

The smoky, spicy, sweaty smell of this other stranger, his
body’s heat and solid mass against me, the hands that caressed my hips and thighs and breasts, all wore away at my hesitation, as did his low voice, telling me a story:

“I was at a rock concert one time, thousands of people packed in close together, all standing up to see better, and moving, kind of dancing in place because there wasn’t room to do anything else. I was with this girl … she had on a really short skirt, like yours, and one time when she dropped her purse and bent over to pick it up I saw she wasn’t wearing any underpants. So … I got her to stand in front of me, and I unzipped, and slipped it in, and slowly, easily, pumped away. Nobody knew what we were doing. Even when we both came nobody noticed, because everybody was yelling and hopping around.” He had pushed up my skirt at the back again and now snagged the elastic of my underpants—soaking wet by now—and began to ease them down.

“No.”

Half of me wanted him to ignore my refusal, not to stop, to take me there among the crowds, even to be seen by disapproving, envious strangers—the other half of me was horrified. What if somebody who knew me came by, somebody I worked with, or one of my neighbors? So I said no again more fiercely, and when I pulled away he let me go.

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“What do you think you’re doing to me?”

“Nothing, compared to what I’d like to do.”

We stared at each other, hot and itchy with frustration. I grabbed his hand.“Well find somewhere not so public. Come on.”

I had nowhere in mind except to get away from the crowds. We walked away from the laughter and talk, away from the blare of amplified music and the bright blur of neon signs toward the quieter streets where there were no bars or all-night service stations, no massage parlors or convenience stores; quieter streets lined with trees where the buildings housed beauty parlors and dentists, small businesses that closed up at nightfall. On one such half-deserted street he pulled me suddenly
into the embrasure of a darkened antique shop and pushed me up against the wall.

“No.” I whispered the word, soft as a caress. I wasn’t even sure he heard. His hands were swift and urgent. My blouse was unbuttoned, my bra undone, my breasts out, nipples teased and kneaded to an aching stiffness. I surrendered, undone, melting, and then quite suddenly I saw myself from the outside: some slut, half undressed in a public place with a stranger, letting a stranger do that to her—I woke up with a sickening shock. That couldn’t be me. I’d always been a good girl, even before I married I’d only had two steady boyfriends; I’d never picked up strange men. Now that I was a married woman this sort of behavior was unthinkable. Sex was something that happened at home, in bed, not in a shop doorway.

I tensed and fought off his hands. I twisted to one side and struggled to push him away, but he pinned my wrists together effortlessly, one-handed, and stared at me, a faint smile twitching his lips.

“No,” I said weakly, not meaning it. I suddenly wanted more than anything to be overpowered, to be made to do what I wanted to do, to have the guilt taken away. He gazed into my eyes and read there what I wanted as he rolled an erect nipple between thumb and forefinger. I felt fixed by his gaze, unable to fight. I stood very still, quivering. He let go my hands and tugged my skirt up to my waist.

“Take off your pants and spread your legs,” he said.

I felt dizzy with desire.“No,” I whispered. I didn’t mean I didn’t want to, and I didn’t mean I did. By my word I meant a different kind of yes; meant make me do it, do it to me, I’m helpless now.

His eyes were unwavering on mine, but for a moment I was afraid he wouldn’t understand. Then he said,“Try and stop me.” He tugged at the waistband of my panties, and then gently peeled them down my legs. When they reached my ankles, I stepped out of them and stood passively, my sex exposed to his view.

A little sigh of pleasure escaped his lips as he looked at me.
Then he became stern again.“Up against the wall and spread your legs.”

I swallowed hard, then found my voice and the only word I had left.“No.”

He laughed.“No? No? What does that mean? Your body’s saying something else.” He slipped his hand between my legs. I gasped and quivered as he found my wetness.“Your body doesn’t lie. Your body says yes.” His touch was as soft as his voice, delicate and perfectly judged. I moaned and closed my eyes, unable to watch him watching me as he stroked my clitoris. I let him continue until his touch was too teasing, his fingering too delicate for my much harsher desire, and then I reached down to push his hand harder against me and his fingers inside me. He gasped as if he were the one penetrated, and I cried out with pleasure, a loud and violent“No!”

The wall was hard against my back. My thighs ached with strain as I rode his hand, the clever, stranger’s fingers that knew me better, it seemed, than I knew myself, knowing just how to stroke and to probe together, knowing when a teasing gentleness should become more brutal. All this time he watched me, watched my face contort and read my desire as he murmured obscenities and endearments, commands and compliments alternating with a purpose like the hard-soft touch of his

And then his other hand was on my ass, fingers probing the crack, and I moaned as he began to work me with both hands, back and front, and I cried out for more, still more.

Without taking his hands away, hardly faltering, he went down on his knees and began tonguing my clitoris, breathing hard with his own excitement. The warm, wet touch of his mouth was gentle, exact, and excruciating, and it was more than I could bear. Like lightning, white-hot, jagged, and intense, the orgasm flashed as I cried and yelled and clutched his curly head.“No,” I cried, and“No” again, as if I must, in my last, desperate moments of pleasure, deny the force of that pleasure, or the reality of it—as if that word would keep it from being real to anyone but me.

Later, but still too soon, while I was rocked in the afterglow,
unwilling to be disturbed, he caught my hand and carried it to his crotch, pressed it against the hard, warm bulge of his cock.

“No.”

I have often wondered what I meant by that. Never in my life before that night had I said no meaning yes, but that night no was my word, my only word, and he had seemed to understand.

I pulled my hand away.“No.”

Maybe I’d forgotten how to say yes. Maybe I wanted him to force me. Maybe I’d just had enough and wanted to send him away. Maybe, my own desire sated, I simply wasn’t interested in his. Later, when I wanted more, I couldn’t believe I’d meant I’d had enough then. I didn’t want to believe I’d been selfish enough to send him away unsatisfied simply because my own immediate need had been met. Most of the time I preferred to believe that when I said no at the end I still meant yes, and that it was his understanding that failed him, and me.

Whatever I might have meant, whatever I’d wanted it to mean, he heard me say no, and took me at my word and left, and I made no effort to call him back.

I never saw him again, although there were nights when I went looking, and there has scarcely been a night since then that I haven’t thought of him and longed for another chance.

After dinner, my husband and I took coffee in the large, yet cozy library, seated on one of the couches upholstered in leather as soft and supple as living skin, near the fire crackling in the hearth. We didn’t talk to any of the other guests—we were being more English than the English on that trip—but we didn’t have much to say to each other. Maybe we’d been married too long, maybe we were inhibited by the company. Certainly I was memory-haunted, aroused by the presence of the young man who looked so much like my long-ago stranger. Guilt made me uneasy in my husband’s company, made me flinch when he touched me. My eyes kept sneaking across to him, and I pretended it was the books in the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that interested me. I felt him watching me, too, usually
just as I looked away, but occasionally our glances would intersect, meeting for one highly charged instant before we both hastily looked away. Was it possible that this boy found me as desirable as had his look-alike of nearly twenty years ago? I hoped my husband wouldn’t notice, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him to know that another man wanted me.

It grew late, and we left the library, passed through the great hall, and mounted the grand staircase, our feet silent on the thick, pile carpet. I gazed up at the Pre-Raphaelite beauties who adorned the brilliant stained-glass windows but hardly saw them through my memories of warm, sensuous lips, long, clever fingers, and the cock I had never known.

I undressed slowly and dreamily in our luxurious room. I was down to the black silk teddy he’d surprised me with on Valentine’s Day when my husband came up behind me and pulled me to him, his hands on my breasts, his breath warm in my ear. I could feel his erection, and I was as aroused as he was, but by the memory of someone else.

Guilt, or something else, made me whisper,“No.”

He kissed me gently on my neck, and I moved my silk-clad bottom teasingly. His hands tightened on my breasts while his lips sought out the pulse in my neck. Caught up by rising excitement, again guilt mingled with desire and I breathed,“No,” and he let go.

I remained rooted to the spot for a few moments in astonished disappointment, feeling the chill of his departure, hearing him sigh as he got into bed.

But what else could I expect?

No had never meant yes in our shared vocabulary. I had never wanted it to until now, just this moment, when I longed for a little telepathy.

Tingling with frustration, I peeled off my useless sexy underwear and climbed naked into bed.

“Goodnight, my darling,” he said, and the chaste kiss he gave me forestalled my chance of letting him know, with my mouth on his, how I really felt. Of course I could have done something more obvious, or simply told him in words, but I
couldn’t think of the right words. I was in a mood to be taken, not to take, so all I could do was lie there wide awake, sulking about being misunderstood and horny, while he fell asleep with insulting ease. Surely, if he’d
really
wanted me he wouldn’t have been able to sleep. Surely, if he’d really wanted me, he would not have walked away.

Time in darkness alone passes slowly. I thought again about that long-ago night and imagined I hadn’t said no, but yes. Or that he had ignored my token protest, had pushed me against the wall and taken me, willingly against my will. Pleasure without guilt; I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help it, he made me…. The game I had to play if I were to remain a happily married woman. Finally I got up. I thought I’d seen a copy of
The Story of 0
on the bookshelves downstairs. With a little help from my hand, it might help me to sleep. I wrapped a silk kimono around my nakedness and left my sleeping husband.

The great house was silent, although not dark. Electric lights in the form of candles burned on the walls of the hallways, illuminating all the closed bedroom doors. I imagined all the other guests paired in pleasure except the solitary stranger, who might be lying awake now, as horny as I was, and for the same reason. I wished I knew which was his door.

In the library the fire still burned, casting enough light to show me that someone was there before me.

He must have had the same reason as I did for coming here. As I entered the room he turned in surprise from the bookcase, a book in one hand. He wore a short, flimsy robe, tied with a sash. Under it, I knew, he was naked.

We stared at each other without speaking for what seemed a long time. There aren’t many times in life that you get a second chance. I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t take this one. I closed the door firmly behind me and walked into the room. When I was only a few feet away from him, standing in the full glow of the fire, I stopped, untied my kimono, and shrugged it off, enjoying the sensation as it slithered silkily down my naked body and settled on the floor, enjoying also the gleam of his eyes as he stared at me without speaking.