The First Time (25 page)

“My book? You want to talk about my book?”

It seemed as good a topic as any, Jake thought. At least until he could get Mattie off his mind. It was Mattie standing between his brain and his dick. He had to dislodge her in order to get his blood flowing freely. “I just wondered how it was coming along.”

Honey pushed herself into a sitting position, crossed her legs, yoga-style, arranging the pink-and-white gingham sheet modestly across her lap. She looked close to tears, Jake thought, trying not to notice. “My book is coming along great.”

“That’s good.”

“I finished chapter three this afternoon.”

“That’s very good.”

“I’m really pleased with it.”

“Good.”

“Good,” she repeated.

“Great.”

“Great.”

There was a long pause. What was the matter with him? Jake thought. Was he really making small talk when he could be making love?

“What’s it about?” he heard himself ask, knowing Honey had always refused to talk about it before.

“A woman involved with a married man.” Honey smiled self-consciously, her voice quivering. “They say you should write about what you know.” Suddenly she burst into tears.

“Honey …”

“It’s okay. I’m fine. Damn it. I’m fine.” She quickly
erased her tears with an angry hand. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, and I won’t. I won’t,” she repeated, as if trying to convince herself. “I hate silly, weepy women.”

“You’re anything but a silly, weepy woman.” Jake reached for her, cradled her in his arms, kissing her forehead. You’re just confused, he thought. Almost as confused as I am. “You have every right to be upset.”

“I know this whole thing isn’t your fault. And I understand, really I do. I know we agreed that going back to your wife was the right thing to do, and I’m not trying to put any pressure on you. I know a demanding mistress is the last thing you need in your life right now. It’s just not easy for me, Jason. Damn it. I guess I was really looking forward to tonight.” A new set of tears clouded her eyes, fell down her cheeks.

“Please, Honey, don’t cry.”

“It’s just that sometimes I feel you slipping away.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m not a fighter, Jason. That’s always been part of my problem. I’ve never really committed to anything. That was true of my marriage, and it’s true of my so-called novel. It’s like I’m always holding back. I don’t take chances, and I give up way too easily. Well, not anymore,” she announced, shoulders straightening in fresh resolve. “For the first time in my life, I’m putting myself on the line. I’m serving warning, Jason. I intend to fight for you. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”

Jake kissed away the fresh tears falling from Honey’s eyes. It was the first time he’d seen her cry, he realized,
licking the tears from the side of her mouth, his tongue gently pushing her lips apart. Honey groaned, wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his thighs. Jake felt a welcome stirring in his groin and quickly pulled Honey into position, pushing his way roughly inside her. Honey gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Jake whispered, then again, “Everything’s going to be all right.” He kept pounding his way inside her, the words pounding simultaneously against the sides of his brain, until he almost believed them himself.

“Champagne?” Roy Crawford was asking.

“Why did I know you’d have champagne?” Mattie smiled at him from her seat on the edge of the king-size bed.

“Because I’m hopelessly predictable?”

Mattie’s smile widened. “Because you’re hopelessly romantic.”

“And you’re not?”

“Me? No. I’m much too practical to be romantic.”

It was Roy Crawford’s turn to smile. “Maybe we can do something about that.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Here
was a beautiful blue-and-ivory room on the twenty-eighth floor of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Chicago, where Mattie had suggested they meet when she called him first thing that morning.
Here
was a king-size bed and a bottle of champagne and a man walking toward her with a twinkle in his eye and two tall glasses of vintage Dom Perignon in his hands.
Here
was what Mattie had been thinking about all day.

Roy Crawford sat down beside her on the edge of the turned-down blue satin bedspread, his knees grazing hers as he handed her a glass of champagne and clicked it against his own. “To tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” Mattie agreed, lifting the glass to her lips, taking a long slow sip as the champagne bubbles tickled at her nose. “Very nice,” she pronounced.

“It is indeed,” Roy Crawford said, though he’d yet to take a drink.

Mattie felt her pulse begin to race. How long had it been since anyone had looked at her with such unbridled lust? “I take it you had no trouble getting away tonight,” she heard herself say over the loud beating of her heart.

“No trouble. Tracey knows I have an erratic schedule.”

“Tracey with an
e-y?”

Roy smiled. “She’s very precise.” He took a sip of his champagne, nodded appreciatively. “What about you? Any problems?”

“My husband has an erratic schedule of his own.” Mattie laughed, although the thought of what Jake might be doing at that exact moment caused one of the champagne bubbles to burst in her throat, and Mattie had a hard time catching her breath.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” Mattie gasped.

“Look up,” Roy instructed. “Put your hands in the air.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know.” Roy Crawford looked appropriately sheepish. “My mother always said that when
you’re choking, you should look up and put your hands in the air.”

“I’m not choking,” Mattie insisted, looking up and raising her hands in the air nonetheless.

“Better?”

Mattie nodded, careful not to speak.

“So, things are going well between you and your husband?” A look of fresh concern flashed through Roy Crawford’s gray eyes.

“Things are just fine,” Mattie assured him, the constriction in her throat rendering her voice a sexy growl.

“And this is what—payback time?”

Mattie stood up, walked to the window, slowly sipped on the champagne in her glass. “No, I don’t think so,” she said honestly. “I don’t think I’m doing this to get back at Jake. Not anymore.” She paused, took a deep breath, feeling her throat clear. “I’m doing this for me.”

Roy was right behind her, his lips on the back of her neck. “I think I’m flattered.”

Mattie felt the hairs at the back of her neck jump to attention. They swayed precariously under the weight of his warm breath. “I think I could use another glass of champagne.”

Roy immediately refilled her glass, watched as she gulped it down. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Very sure.” Mattie lowered the glass to the table, raised her hands to Roy’s face, brought her lips to his. His lips were soft and wide, wider than Jake’s, she thought, as he expertly returned her kiss, his mouth open, with only a hint of tongue. Just the right amount of pressure, Mattie decided. Clearly a man who
enjoyed kissing and had perfected its art. “You do that very well,” she told him, her legs tingling as he danced her slowly toward the bed.

“I have four sisters. We used to practice all the time when we were kids.”

They stopped in front of the bed, and he kissed her again. This time the kiss was deeper, although his tongue remained a soft tease. Yes, indeed, he’d practiced well, Mattie thought. Not that Jake wasn’t a good kisser. He was. It had just been a very long time since he’d kissed her like this. Had he ever? she wondered, the back of her calves hitting the baseboard of the bed. Go away, Jake, Mattie thought, opening her eyes, Roy Crawford’s large head blurring around her.

Roy pulled back slightly, though his lips remained fastened to hers. His hands found the front of her green silk blouse, his fingers tracing increasingly small circles across her breasts. So far, so good, Mattie thought, as his hands began unbuttoning her white pearl buttons. She felt a familiar tingle in the bottom of her right foot. It was nothing to worry about, she assured herself. Her whole body was tingling. There was nothing to worry about.

“How’re you doing?” Roy whispered.

“Great,” she told him.

“Great,” he repeated, sliding the blouse down over her shoulders, his fingers returning immediately to the front of her black lace bra. “You’re so beautiful,” he told her, his hands sliding down to her hips.

He took his time, removing each article of clothing with care, marveling at the softness of her skin, the delicate curves of her body, her smell, the way she
responded to each new caress. “Look at you,” he said, lying down beside her on fresh white sheets. “Do you have any idea how incredibly beautiful you are?”

“Tell me again,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

And so he did. Again and again. His hands were on her breasts, in her hair, between her legs, his lips tracing the path of his hands, his tongue retracing the path of his lips. Mattie closed her eyes, opened them when she found Jake lurking behind her lashes. Go home, Jake, she told him. This bed isn’t big enough for all of us.

“Ready?” Roy Crawford was asking.

“Not yet.” Mattie sat up, pushed Roy Crawford playfully down. “My turn,” she said, studying his naked body. The last time she’d cheated on her husband, she’d closed her eyes and looked the other way. She had no intention of doing that now. No, this time, she was going to savor every second. She was going into this affair with her eyes wide open.

Roy Crawford was in great shape for a man his age, Mattie thought, running her fingers across his smooth chest. Slim, taut, muscular. He obviously took very good care of himself. Probably works out a few days a week at the gym. Like Jake does, Mattie thought. The gym—where Jake met Honey. Honey with an
e-y
, she thought.

She felt Roy Crawford flinch beneath her fingers. “Sorry,” Mattie apologized quickly. “Did I hurt you?”

“Easy does it,” Roy Crawford said.

“I guess I’m out of practice.”

“You’re doing great,” he said, as Mattie’s mouth took over from her fingers.

In the next minute Mattie was on top of him, fitting her body over him. She cried out as he entered her, and he reached up, held her, as he moved inside her. Soon they changed positions, so that he was on top, then again, so that he was at her side, then again, so that she was back on top. “You’re so beautiful,” he kept saying, over and over again. “So beautiful. So beautiful.” He flipped her over, lifted her legs over his shoulders, rose onto his knees, pounding his way farther and farther inside her. Mattie arched her back to accommodate him, her hands grabbing his buttocks, pushing him deeper into her, as if trying to take his entire being inside her. She felt dizzy and euphoric, her body buzzing, as if it were about to explode. It was magic, she thought, as her body shuddered to a climax.

How much she’d missed that magic, Mattie realized. How much she needed it in her life.

“Are you all right?” Roy was asking from somewhere beside her.

“Fine,” Mattie said, smiling gratefully. “You?”

He leaned over, kissed her bare shoulder. “Fine,” he said.

Silence.

The magic was over.

Like any good magic trick, it had vanished without a trace. Great while it lasted, worthy of all the hosannas it received, but in the end, over before you knew it, before you could examine it for clues, for subtle sleights of hand, for telltale strings attached. Ooh and aah all you liked—in the end, there was nothing there.

Was that what she really wanted? Was that how she wanted to spend the last year of her life?

That was one of the things she loved about art, Mattie realized. It was precise, permanent, meticulous, inside the lines. Even the most outrageous scrawl was usually well thought out in advance. Life, on the other hand, was transient, fleeting, messy. It didn’t care if it strayed outside the lines. Hell, it bulldozed right over them.

She looked toward Roy, self-made millionaire and perpetual adolescent, sprawled out naked beside her, not a false pretension in sight.
I yam what I yam what I yam
. Popeye as Plato. Simplicity itself. Exactly as advertised. She closed her eyes. If there was more to him, she didn’t want to know.

The magic was over.

After several minutes, Mattie glanced toward the clock at the side of the bed. Already twelve minutes after nine o’clock. “I should probably think about getting back home,” she said, thinking ahead to the long cab ride home.

Roy Crawford ran his hand through his thick gray hair. “Yeah. I should really get a move on.”

They were like two strangers waking up from a night of drunken revelry to find themselves naked and sweaty and vaguely afraid of the person beside them, Mattie thought as Roy headed for the bathroom.

Seconds later, Mattie heard the shower running. She reached for her clothes, dragging her pants over her hips, her arms through the sleeves of her blouse. There’d be plenty of time to shower when she got home, she decided. It was unlikely that Jake would be home before midnight. She was still fumbling with the buttons of her green silk shirt when Roy came out of the shower, a large white towel draped casually around his hips.

“Problems?” he asked.

“The buttons don’t want to cooperate.” Mattie hid her shaking fingers behind her back.

“Allow me.” Roy Crawford’s hands returned to the front of her blouse. He hesitated, his fingers hovering over her breasts. “Better not,” he said finally, fastening each button in turn.

“Thank you,” Mattie said sincerely.

“Any time.” Roy kissed her gently on the side of her lips.

“Thank you,” Mattie said again.

Roy Crawford looked surprised. “For what?”

“For making me feel like a sex object.”

They laughed. “My pleasure,” he said, reaching for his socks. “You know, I’d really like to see that exhibition your husband mentioned the other night.” He slid into his black pants, pulled his blue sweater over his head.

“I think you should,” Mattie agreed, straightening her hair in the mirror across from the bed. “There are several photographs I think you’d really like.”