Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (42 page)

private garden with a center fountain. The porch had rocking

chairs and a joggling board, that most traditional of Lowcountry

toys. Joggling boards are found all over Charleston—a long plank

of wood pegged into two rockers that moves sideways. Immedi-

ately, I went to the center of it and sat down, bouncing.

“I used to play for hours on one of these when I was a kid,”

I said.

“You had one?” He was fumbling with his keys.

“No, but there was a house on the Island that had one and

I’d sneak up on their porch and use it,” I said.

“I’ll bet you were hell on wheels,” he said.

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“Suh! Please! Southern Catholic ladies are perhaps purga-

tory on wheels, but that is all.”

“I see,” he said. He was pretty cute when he smiled. Finally he

found the key and opened the side door. His alarm sounded. Four

monotone beeps followed by another one disarmed the system and

we went inside. Stepping in, I was surprised at what I found. His

living room looked like something from
Southern Living
magazine.

I guess I had expected a bachelor pad, thrown together–type room.

“God, Roger, this is beautiful!”

“Yeah, thanks, I went out with a decorator for a while. It

was incredible what she could spend just on fabric. Pretty,

though, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Make yourself comfortable, I’ll put the coffee on.”

“Okay.”

I wandered around the room. From the picture molding to

the chair rail, the walls were covered in padded red silk with

embroidered gold bumblebees. The paneling below the chair

rail was solid cherry and looked to be two hundred years old.

The floor was covered in a Persian carpet—navy, red and ivory

swirls and birds. One sofa was red and gold stripe and the other

was a soft taupe velvet. On the walls hung paintings of ships,

dating to the early part of the century or earlier. Over the fire-

place was a nineteenth century portrait of a man.

Roger returned and caught me staring at the painting.The

man in the portrait had the saddest eyes but the most beautiful

face. His brown eyes looked at me, his lips were full and sullen.

“My great-grandfather,” he said, “painted by John Singer

Sargent at the end of his life. A good one, hey?”

“Beautiful.”

He handed me a small cup and motioned for me to sit on

the sofa. I took the cup, tasted the espresso and inhaled the rich-

ness of it.

“I know you’re worried about drinking espresso and sleep-

ing, but don’t. I have something to take care of that,” he said.

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“Oh?”

With that he leaned over to a box on the coffee table and

opened it. It was an antique wooden box, inlaid with jade, an

old tea box. It was filled with a greenish brown dried herb,

something that resembled marijuana. He pulled a pack of rolling

papers from another box and began to roll a joint.

“You’re kidding,” I said and started to laugh.

“Oh, don’t tell me you never got high in your life,” he said.

“Um, yeah, but not since Woodstock.”

“Excuse me, but during Woodstock, you would’ve been about

fifteen.”

“Seventeen. But I was a sympathizer.”

“Well, you’ll be delighted to know that the quality of drugs

has vastly improved.” He lit the cigarette and took a long pull.

“Oh, that’s great news. Listen, Roger, I don’t want to seem

like a prude, but I don’t do this shit anymore.”

He laughed and handed it to me. I hesitated and then, in a

moment of wild abandon, took a small drag and passed it back.

“Holy smoke,” I said.

“Yep!” He coughed and laughed and handed the joint back

to me.

Now, ordinarily, I would have said, “Gee, this is cool but I

gotta go.” Somehow, for some reason, those words weren’t com-

ing. I was a little bit tired of doing the right thing all the time and

I figured, what the hell, this guy was a responsible doctor. What

was the harm? I’d get a little high, I’d probably love it and then I’d

go home and sleep like a baby. Sure. I took another toke and all of

a sudden I felt myself rising from my body.“Whoa! What
is
this?”

“Be cool! It’s Colombian and very strong. Just relax. It’s

okay.”

I was paralyzed. I watched him get up and put a CD on and

every movement of his seemed to be under a strobe light. Jerk.

Jerk. Jerk. It was so weird. I didn’t remember pot being like this

in the seventies. No, this was a new kind of pot. Pot? Pot?

Did someone say pot? Teflon? Calphalon? Cast iron? I started to

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giggle. Oh, my God! My ass was flying.The music he played was

mostly bass and the thumping of it reminded me of sex.

Roger came back to the couch and stood in front of me,

holding out his hand.“Want to see the rest of the house?”

“Sure,” I heard someone say and then realized it was myself.

Lamb to the slaughter, lamb to the slaughter. No, no. I can

handle it, I told myself. He led me through a series of rooms.

The dining room, a kitchen, a study then back out to the foyer.

We went up the steps to the second floor.

“Nice!” I managed with no small struggle.“Don’t you think

it would be nice to sit on the porch and rock?”

He started to laugh.

“Sit on the porch and rock!” He laughed again and again.

“Come on!”

So we walked through two bedrooms, an office, two bath-

rooms and up to the third floor where there were two more

bedrooms and a cedar closet with one giant bathroom in the

hall. One of the bedrooms held exercise equipment.

“Well, this is handy,” I said, getting on the stair stepper and

beginning a fevered workout.

“Come on, now, you’re gonna hurt something!”

He pulled me down from the stair stepper and into his arms.

In the next instant his mouth was on mine. I thought for a sec-

ond he was going to Hoover my lips. It was a curious thing to be

so stoned and be kissed so heavily by someone I barely knew.

“Roger? What’s happening here?”

“Come on,” he said, taking me by the hand.

He led me down one flight to his bedroom. The moment

Maggie predicted had arrived. I was stunned that it could happen

so quickly without any real discussion and I wasn’t quite mentally

ready for all this action.We walked in the room and I took a good

look at his bed. It looked harmless enough for a king-size bed

with pillows all over it. It had an upholstered headboard and a

matching spread in brown and rust paisley velvet. It certainly

looked comfortable and suddenly I was very sleepy.

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I stood there while he went to his closet and pulled out a

wrapped box. A present! For me? I was so tired, all I wanted to

do was have a nap for an hour or so and then I knew I’d be fine.

My head was spinning and his voice seemed to come from

another place.

“I saw this and all I could think about was you,” Roger said.

“Open it.”

I removed the paper and found a box from Victoria’s Secret.

Oh, oh, I thought, what the hell is this? I undid the tissue paper

and pulled out an ivory lace corset, matching thong panties and

stockings. Try as I did to suppress them, I was choking on gig-

gles. He mistook them for nerves.

“Will you put it on for me?” he asked.

“Sure! What do you think? That I’m a nun?”

Shit. He was serious. Now what? If he wants to see me in

this, no problem, I thought. Maggie’s right.The first time would

be the worst. I would’ve been a wreck except for the fact that it

all seemed so hilarious. He cracked up and I started laughing too.

In the bathroom, I flipped on the light and studied my face

in the mirror for a minute. My eyes were bloodshot from the

pot. I became fixated on that and couldn’t stop staring at them.

“You all right, Susan?”

“Yes! I’ll be right out.”

With a boldness that came from the most remote rampart of

my loose-cannon brain, I undressed and sort of tossed my bra

over his shower curtain rod. I had a hard time with all the hooks

and eyes of the corset and finally decided to put it on backward

and then spin it around.That worked but while I was pulling and

twisting, I was getting an aerobic workout. I started giggling

again. Good Lord, I thought, when was the last time I laughed

this much? It was a darn good thing I had waxed.
It’s a good thing,

Martha!
The panties were indecent! I laughed again, realizing I’d

better get a grip on myself if I was going to be this dude’s fantasy.

Dude? I hadn’t even thought of that word in twenty years! Okay,

thirty.

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After I had the stockings hooked up I had to decide

whether or not I was going to parade back into the bedroom

with or without shoes. I decided to wear the shoes, thinking I’d

look taller and thinner. I used his hairbrush and ate a little bit of

his toothpaste.

Suddenly, I completely lost my nerve and sat down on the

lid of his toilet. Why was I doing this? If this guy asked me to

run naked in his living room would I have said yes? No, I told

myself, this was different. Roger had thought this out and this

was what he wanted, badly enough to ask me.

I saw his robe hanging on the back of the door and put it

on. It was black silk. One more look in his mirror and I saw that

my face was frozen in worry. My head was still spinning a little

and I couldn’t remember if I’d been in the bathroom for an

hour or for ten minutes. He knocked on the door again.

“It’s okay, Susan, I’m not going to jump on you,” he said.

“Oh! I’m coming out!”

“I just want to see you, that’s all.”

“I know.” My voice quivered a little like a six-year-old’s.

“Haven’t ever done anything like this, have you?”

“No.”

“It’s okay. I understand.Want me to come in and get you?”

I tightened his robe around my waist.“Yeah, okay. I mean, if

you want to.”

The door opened and there he was. Cute, thoughtful and

harmless. He held out his hand to me.

“Come on, I don’t bite, unless you want me to, that is.”

I took his hand but his last remark sent a tiny chill up my

spine. We walked into his room and stood before the sliding

mirrored doors of his closets. He stood behind me with his arms

around my waist. Slowly, he untied the sash of the robe.The sash

hung by my sides. He moved my hair and kissed me on the back

of my neck. His breath was hot.With his right hand he opened

the robe and pulled it back over my shoulder. The entire robe

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slipped to the floor between us. I couldn’t look at myself or at

him. I flushed with embarrassment.

“You are magnificent,” he said.

He took me by the hand and led me to the bed.

“All I want to do is kiss you,” he said.

I didn’t believe that for a minute, but I had already resigned

myself to the fact that this train would be very hard to stop once it

got moving. He undid his tie and slipped it off. He unbuttoned his

shirt and pulled his shirttail out and finally threw it on a chair. He

pulled down the covers and I sat on the side of the bed while he

folded his trousers neatly and put them on the chair too.Although

I was preoccupied with holding in my stomach, I couldn’t help but

notice that he was wearing tight white briefs that told me every-

thing else about him that I was shamelessly curious to know.

“Move over,” he said.

Like a good little girl, I did. By this time I was thinking some

pretty wicked thoughts. I had to admit that dressing up in this

costume made me feel pretty sexy. I wanted to kiss him and the

thought of making love was exciting. He began kissing me and it

wasn’t like the hard kiss he had given me upstairs but more like

someone who was conserving his energy. I loved it and I’d be a

liar to say I didn’t. He moved his lips all across my throat and

down the middle of my chest, never touching my breasts. This

frustrated me, but he was in control here and I was eager to see

how long his kisses could last. I wiggled backward, up into the

pillows, as his mouth traveled my legs. From one leg to the other

he went, every now and then a little nibble on the inside of my

thigh. My breathing became deeper and desire took over. In fact,

I was becoming rather wanton, to my complete surprise.

He unsnapped my stockings and began to remove them

ever so slowly. Now I was tortured. If this man didn’t crawl on

me pretty soon I was going to scream. He removed my shoes,

flipping them across the room over his shoulder. Now he was on

the floor, kneeling at the bottom of his bed, kissing and licking

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my feet.Thank God I had a pedicure, I thought. I heard some-

one moaning and it was him. Finally! I thought, finally!

“Roger? Come back here,” I said.

He began sucking my toes and they were incredibly ticklish.