Him

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter 1. The night I met Him …

Chapter 2. He comes over unexpectedly …

Chapter 3. I can’t find Him …

Chapter 4. Rushing home to Him …

Chapter 5. Best friends and abandoned cats …

Chapter 6. I can’t find Him, redux.

Chapter 7. Waiting to see Him …

Chapter 8. He’s going to Paris. Paris?

Chapter 9. A glorious weekend with Him …

Chapter 10. Sexting …

Chapter 11. Without Him, my life unravels …

Chapter 12. We break up …

Chapter 13. The Boy, oh, The Boy …

Chapter 14. Loving The Boy …

Chapter 15. The Boy and I live in a fantasy world …

Chapter 16. A trip to the mountains with The Boy. The Boy …

Chapter 17. And then it was Him again, Him …

Chapter 18. Letting go of The Boy, the beautiful, beautiful BOY …

Chapter 19. Sam attempts to intervene by reading me the riot act …

Chapter 20. Him, Him, Oh, My God, Him

Chapter 21. Another intervention …

Chapter 22. I love Him. I love Him. I just do …

Chapter 23. Him, up close and personal …

Chapter 24. The promises I so wanted to hear …

Chapter 25. A trip with Him, destination unknown …

Chapter 26. What happens in Vegas …

Chapter 27. Confusion …

Chapter 28. Christmas without Him

Chapter 29. The Boy …

Chapter 30. Hysteria …

Chapter 31. Doomsday

Chapter 32. The Boy, The Boy …

Chapter 33. I have lost Him …

Chapter 34. Post Script

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

The night I met HIM …

And I do lift my aching arms to you,

And I do lift my anguished, avid breast

And I do weep for very pain of you,

And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest,

D. H. Lawrence, ‘A Love Song’

This is what I know: I took a short cut to the real thing. I slept with a man I’d known for less than an hour. It wouldn’t have been the first time nor the last. Before you make a value judgment, it’s just who I am. It’s not an everyday thing. Hell, months can go by, but I have gone down the road of indiscriminate sex before. Who hasn’t, really? It’s part of the rite of passage of being a young woman. I’d had the requisite long-term relationship before. But no one had come even close to being LTR material since then until HIM. HIM.

So how did I meet HIM? I remember perfectly. I’d gone to a reading of my sophomore Community College students’ work at the Downtown Library. It was a big deal for them and we’d all dressed up for the occasion. I was wearing a flowery vintage lacy dress that showed off all my curves. I’m ordinarily a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal, but the occasion gave me an excuse to wear something pretty. It made me feel alive and sexy.

I was sitting next to THE BOY during the reading. Our shoulders were touching. I’d always had a thing for him since the day he walked into my class when he was a freshman. He’d been taking my classes every semester and acted like he had the hots for me. During the readings, I tried to listen to the students read but mainly I was thinking about how nice it would be to have sex with THE BOY. He was on the swim team. He was dark and sleek and had a swimmer’s body.

After the reading, my students asked me to go with them to some diner down the street but I begged off. I’d been a community college instructor for too long. Hanging out with the students had lost much of its charm.

I bid them adieu. There was a new high-rise hotel across the street from the library. The building was beautiful, with strips of neon against a tall glass exterior. It looked like a hotel you’d find in Manhattan. I decided to check out the bar. A drink sounded good. With any luck, there’d be a handsome man wanting to pay attention to me. It had been a while since I’d been with a man. To be perfectly honest, THE BOY had gotten me all hot and bothered but it would be better to find a more appropriate suitor.

The bar was very sleek. It was all glass and black furnishing and recessed lighting. And there he was. HIM. He nodded as he beckoned for me to come over to HIM. He ordered us martinis. It sounded good.

We began talking. I looked at HIM. He was tall and muscular with ever so slanted eyes. He was handsome in a take-charge kind of way.

He was not wearing a wedding ring.

I looked into his eyes and knew I would sleep with HIM that evening.

As he talked to me we were both getting more and more turned on. I looked sexy – all soft curves with straight brown hair and large luminous brown eyes. I knew I’d sleep with HIM soon.

Looking at HIM I knew he was already making love to me in his mind. Both of us were holding our breath in sexual anticipation. It was only a matter of time.

So what was a nice woman like myself doing having sex with a stranger? I wasn’t really desperate. Not really. I had a good job as an instructor at a junior college teaching English Lit and Creative Writing classes. Some of the students held promise. It wasn’t a bad job. I taught four classes, three in the morning and one in the early afternoon, and didn’t have classes on Fridays.

I lived in a duplex on a half-acre of land. It was a cosy place with a fireplace and a pretty backyard with fruit trees. I grew a small vegetable garden during the summer months.

I wasn’t looking for a relationship when I met HIM. I didn’t want anything permanent. Or so I thought. I just wanted sex. At least it seemed that it was what I wanted until I met HIM. So what if it was dangerous? What did I have to lose? I just wanted the touch of a man.

I looked at HIM sitting next to me. He was wearing a grey wool suit. His golden blond hair was thick. I desired HIM.

He told me he was a partner at a law firm that specialised in International Law. He’d completed law school at an Ivy League university.

I could envision already how good our bodies would look together. I didn’t ask HIM how old he was but he appeared to be in his mid-forties.

‘Our headquarters are south of here,’ he said, mentioning a city about fifty miles away. ‘But I’m currently working on a case at our downtown office and staying at the hotel.’

He leaned into me. ‘I was bored sitting in my room. You’re such a delightful surprise.’ Our eyes met. He placed his hand lightly on mine. ‘I’m divorced with two children.’ For a moment he looked sad and lost. ‘My ex kept the house. I rent a small apartment near my kids.’

We sat there in silence as I took in his information.

‘I want you –’ he whispered in my ear.

‘Yes.’

I thanked my lucky stars he was not already taken, although I would’ve made love to HIM anyway. I wanted HIM that badly.

I’d never been with a man like HIM before. I tended toward the struggling artist type. Most of the men in my life drove ten-year-old Toyota Corollas. They worked at Starbucks while writing screenplays they could never sell. They had roommates or had moved back in with their parents.

‘Would you like another drink?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I replied.

He ordered another round. The room started to swirl. I was feeling light-headed. I wasn’t sure if it was from the alcohol or the close proximity of HIM.

After taking the last sip of the martini, he leaned further into me and kissed me on the neck. I gasped.

‘I want you in my room.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

He paid the bill. We stood up. I turned toward HIM. He pressed himself up against me so I could feel his erection, and kissed me hard.

When we got into the elevator he was already beginning to make love to me. His hands travelled all over my body and he kissed me hard on the mouth. Then he unbuttoned my dress, unhooked the bra and began sucking my nipples.

I heard the elevator door open when it reached his floor. For a moment I was disoriented.

Inside his room he turned on a set of dim lights, then pushed me against the closed door of the room.

His next kiss lasted for hours.

Then he led me to the bed.

I stripped and lay down naked on the bed on my back, watching HIM as he took off his clothes. He was taking his time getting undressed, teasing me with the tension. When he removed his underwear, his ass was beautiful. When he turned around I stared at his beautiful erection.

He knelt down on the bed and kissed me between my thighs. Right there. Just once. A hello. But the kiss went straight to my heart.

‘I’m on birth control pills,’ I told HIM.

He smiled at me. I was giving HIM permission to enter me without a condom – wanting to feel HIM bareback – to feel HIM completely. Nothing else would do.

I had to have all of HIM. All of HIM.

He moved up my body, kissing my stomach, and stopped at my breasts. ‘Oh, oh,’ he said, cupping them in his hands. ‘You have the most beautiful breasts.’

Lying on top of me he made love to them, with his mouth, lips and hands. He sucked on my nipples, first one then the other, as if his life depended on it.

Eventually he moved and straddled me so that his cock could play with my breasts. I pressed them together so he could slide between. We both moaned and his movement became more frenetic to the critical point, when he sat up and came over my breasts.

‘Thank you. Thank you,’ I said, nearly in tears.

He collapsed next to me. ‘My God, that was hot. I’ve never been so turned on.’

I was delirious with happiness, so wanting to please HIM sexually. I can’t even begin to say how much I needed to be fucked by HIM. It was just what it was: I had to have HIM.

I don’t know how much time elapsed before we recovered but we held each other tightly. I knew he’d make love to me again that night.

Later he lay on top of me and slipped a finger inside my pussy.

‘Yes.’

‘My God, you are so fucking wet.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m gonna have to fuck you.’

‘Yes.’

‘I need to fuck you.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m gonna fuck you hard.’

‘OK.’

‘I mean it.’

‘Yes.’

It was then that he lay on top of me and slipped his cock inside. And at first he just lay still with his penis buried deep. He was claiming me for himself. I understood that.

Then he began kissing me. His tongue was inside my mouth, claiming it too. He began moving; his thrusts inside me were deep and hard. By now we were both lost in arousal, kissing each other, fucking each other, his excitement mounting, until his final thrust. As he burst inside me, he let out a deep groan so guttural and intimate it almost scared me.

When he rested on top of me, I realised I was so happy because I had his seed inside me. I had so wanted HIM to come deep inside.

When he fell asleep, I was content to just look at HIM. I glanced at the clock in the hotel room. It was 3.18 a.m. I couldn’t sleep so I got out of bed and dressed quietly, not wanting to disturb HIM. Before leaving the room I left a business card with my cellphone number scribbled on the back. I looked back at HIM once more before closing the door gently. I didn’t know if I would see HIM again.

2

He comes over unexpectedly …

I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

James Joyce, Ulysses

I was useless the day after I met HIM. HIM.

My body was sore with aching breasts from the love bites he’d bestowed upon them. He’d fucked me to oblivion and back. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I stopped for a café latte at Starbucks before getting to the college. After my first class was over I ran to the women’s staff bathroom. My pussy burned when I peed. My eyes began to tear. Leaning against the side of the bathroom stall, I wanted to scream out in pain. Closing my eyes I remembered HIM. HIM. And I wanted to rush out of the school and go back to the downtown hotel. It didn’t matter that he’d probably left the room.

I wanted HIM. I wanted HIM like mad.

During class that day my students were whiny and needy. THE BOY seemed to have intuited my sexual liaison with the man from the hotel and he scowled at me. I barely listened to the other students. I blew off their questions after class and faked a headache. I couldn’t wait to get home so I could lie in my own bed and think about HIM. I was addicted to HIM already.

THE BOY stopped at my desk after class. ‘Did you have a nice time at the hotel bar?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I think you had more than a nice time. You’re all flushed,’ he said, laughing, then turned around and did not look back at me.

I didn’t keep my office hours but quit the college in mid-afternoon, leaving a stack of ungraded papers on my desk.

When I arrived home, my landlord was out in front raking leaves. Our daily exchanges were important to us both. He waved but I didn’t acknowledge him; I just wanted to be left alone with my thoughts.

Inside my duplex I hastily undressed and headed for the bathroom. I ran a hot bath, lay in it with my eyes closed and immediately played with myself as I recalled the evening with HIM.

I stayed in the bathtub until the water grew cold. After I climbed out I went and stood before the bathroom mirror. My body was still sore in places. He’d fucked me so thoroughly with his cock, his hands and his mouth, and I noticed a trail of love bites turning black and blue on my breasts. Swaying back and forth before the mirror, I grabbed my breasts and squeezed them hard before slipping my right middle finger inside my pussy. I came almost immediately. Because I was thinking of HIM. HIM.

My body was my gift to HIM.

I went and lay in bed.

Later that evening, as I lay awake in bed, my phone began to vibrate. A text message. It could have been anyone but when the message arrived I stopped breathing. I could tell by the area-code number that it was HIM: the man who had put his cock inside me the night before and the man who would put his cock inside me again. I was certain of this.

HIM: Hey, pretty lady. I loved last night.

ME: Me 2. It was amazing.

HIM: I want to c u again.

ME: Soon?

HIM: Soon. I need to touch you all over.

ME: Yes. Where r u now?

And then nothing. I waited for HIM to write back, heart thumping, staring at the phone and willing it to beep. The phone became hot in my hand but still I held on to it. I waited for an hour and then I texted HIM again.

ME: Where r u?

* * *

And then I really began waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting, always for HIM. This is what I knew – I’d pretended I wasn’t lonely, but I was. Ever since I’d met HIM I’d become sick with loneliness. Getting out of bed began to feel impossible. Where was he? Why was he not with me? I tormented myself with these questions.

My days crawled. I no longer felt inspired at work.

Before I had met HIM, even if it was difficult to acknowledge, I was hungry, alone, angry and tired. I was prime for some sort of entanglement. The diverging road was sexually complicated and I took it, knowing that my love affair with HIM would alter my life in some irrevocable way. The intensity of the sex alone had been difficult to process.

I was ripe for HIM.

I was 33 years old and had lived in the same duplex since I moved out of my mother’s house when I started college, fifteen years before. My landlord, Sam, lived next door. He and I stood by one another through our loved ones’ illnesses and eventual passings.

Sam’s wife got sick first. He and I more or less nursed her those last two years of her life. Then it was my mother who battled the same disease, only to die from it several years later. Breast cancer shows no mercy.

Then my landlord’s vision worsened. He’d retired from his job as a civil engineer. He didn’t want to drive back and forth to work. He could barely see. I spent more and more time taking care of him. I began helping him manage the apartment buildings he’d bought nearby. We’d interview prospective tenants together. I’d help him with minor repairs in the buildings. I drove him to get his groceries several times a week and baked him pies using fruit from the trees in the backyard. In turn, Sam stopped charging me rent. We were an odd family but it worked for us. Eventually he became the father I never had.

This was my backstory. I never thought of myself as unhappy, but my night with HIM had confused me profoundly. I mean, I hadn’t felt alone until I met HIM.

I didn’t hear from HIM for several days, though it felt like a couple of weeks, but he made contact on a Friday. I’d left college early and returned, wearily, to my duplex. Sat down on the sofa and listened to the rain beating on my roof. I lit a fire and watched the logs burn before falling asleep on the couch.

The vibration of the phone woke me. It was HIM.

HIM: Can I come up, now?

ME: Where r u?

HIM: @ my downtown office. Just finishing up.

ME: It’s raining.

HIM: Don’t be silly. I can be there in no time.

ME: Fantastic!

I began the ritual of getting ready for a man. I took a long bath and reapplied my make-up. I found a black lace negligée. It fit my body perfectly. I took to my bed, waiting for HIM, occasionally fingering myself in anticipation. I was wet for HIM already.

About an hour later he was at my door.

I let HIM in.

He embraced me.

‘It would be heaven to wake up to you every morning,’ he whispered in my ear.

I gasped. What an amazing promise. It was a beautiful fantasy.

I could already imagine being in bed with HIM each morning. We’d live in a pretty little seaside cottage. It would be a sweet little place. We’d be able to feel a soft sea breeze upon our skin when the bedroom window was left open in the summer months. What better place to make love to this beautiful man?

I knew his promise was premature. But it didn’t matter. Already I was repeating it in my head. He wanted to wake up to me every morning. He wanted to wake up to me. He wanted …

I took HIM to my sofa. We sat there for hours. He explored my body with his hands. He stopped for a moment, looking into my eyes.

We began to kiss again. He slowly removed my negligee. I sat naked in front of HIM. He liked my being naked while he was still dressed. It turned HIM on.

He devoured my breasts with his mouth, sucking on my nipples until I moaned with equal pleasure and pain.

‘I love your breasts,’ he said, cupping them. ‘I could get down on my hands and knees to worship them.’ And he did just that: he fell to his knees and buried his face in my chest.

I felt honoured.

‘I love this,’ he whispered. ‘I love it. I could stay like this for ever.’

‘I want you inside me,’ I pleaded. ‘Please.’

I took HIM into my bedroom. I lay on the bed and watched HIM undress. As he walked towards me, I was transfixed by his erection.

He fucked me thoroughly, over and over, in so many different positions. I’d never felt so womanly before. What was there to say? Being with HIM was exhilarating. I couldn’t get enough of HIM. He seemed to feel the same way.

He left a few hours later after telling me that his son needed to be at football practice early the next day.

I would see HIM again soon.

3

I can’t find HIM …

We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

This is what I understood: before I met HIM I’d been walking blind. But now my eyes were wide open. All my senses were amplified. It was a brave new world I’d entered and I wasn’t sure how to navigate it. It felt overwhelming.

I could not stop crying.

But it didn’t matter. I would’ve sojourned here anyway.

This was what I knew: I gave HIM my body. He made love to it, fucked it, slapped it, bit it and spanked it. In turn he gave me oblivion in pleasure.

I didn’t feel that I’d ever had a choice. And until I entered his world I couldn’t have possibly known I would feel this way.

* * *

The next morning I was scheduled to help my landlord Sam with the maintenance of one of his apartment buildings. I met him out in the front of our duplex at 10 a.m. I unlocked the doors of my car, Sam walked round to the passenger side and I slipped into the driver’s seat. We put on our seatbelts. I looked at him.

‘Grandview?’ I asked.

‘Grandview,’ he echoed, chuckling.

Even after all the years of living next to one another and my helping to take care of his apartment buildings, we could never say the name of this one without laughing. The Grandview Apartments actually faced a row of warehouses.

‘The drunk in 201 finally moved out,’ he told me.

‘Always fun going in after someone like that leaves. God only knows what you’ll find,’ I said, heading south towards the Grandview.

‘Apartment 111 says the sink is leaking.’

‘Piece of cake. The pipe needs a new washer,’ I said.

‘You’re good,’ Sam said.

‘I learned everything I know from you.’

‘The lady in 203 called last night to say the lightbulb in her bathroom ceiling fixture needs to be changed,’ he said.

‘What time did she call you anyway?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe around three in the morning.’

‘That lady is out of her mind. Besides, it isn’t your responsibility to change her lightbulbs.’

‘She’s older than I am. I feel sorry for her.’

‘Maybe she’s after you.’

We both laughed. The tenant in 203 was too old and too frail to have any romantic thoughts towards him or anyone.

‘Do you ever consider remarrying?’ I asked him.

‘Well, obviously I’m not gonna marry the lady in 203. But no, I don’t think about getting married again. I liked being married to the Mrs. But when she died, I never once thought about it. It would be hard to go through all the motions of sharing my life with someone again.’

‘I felt like I was married to Jake,’ I said.

‘I know. You were married in your own fashion. What about your new guy?’

‘New guy?’ I played innocent.

‘Oh, c’mon. I saw him get out of his car a couple nights ago,’ Sam said.

‘Well, it’s way too soon to call,’ I said. ‘Needless to say he claims his ex-wife is evil.’

‘That’s too bad,’ said Sam. ‘Usually if there are unresolved feelings from the divorce, they get carried over into the next relationship.’