Hidden Pleasures

Her evening starts with three short, firm raps on the apartment door. She opens it to reveal him standing there. The lingering smell of cigarette smoke is on his jacket. She takes a moment to breathe him in. He smiles hungrily. Neither say a word.

His lips press into hers roughly, and his hands immediately find her waist. She moans into his mouth and they hit the wall as one. Her hands roam distractedly as her right knee begins to climb against his thigh. Their bodies heat with the known passion of two demanding and impatient lovers, separated for far too long. He must have her. Here. Now. She must be taken. Nothing else matters. The rest of her life is thrown from her mind by the selfish animal pressed against her. Vaguely, they both hear the sound of the door close behind them.

Their desires feed off each other: her fingers paw at the back of his jacket, longing for flesh. His own hand denies them, pinning her wrists against the wall above her head. She resists, but her strength is no match. His spare hand rises against the contours of her form assuredly. Her body betrays her, shuddering with pleasure under his physical dominance. And when his hand grabs at her breast she is overcome by the demand between her thighs. “Fuck me,” she begs, biting his ear. Their clothes line the way to the bedroom.

~ ~ ~

Her friends would describe her as quite sexless. Not a prude, just not sexually ambitious. But then again, her friends didn’t know that he existed. No one did. She didn’t need to keep him a secret, but she liked to. It’s how it had started, and it’s how it would stay. For the two of them, everything that they were was found in the unsaid. Everything was between the lines.

Her days otherwise were plain: what you would expect of any North American. She went to work, did her 9-5, and then went to coffee or dinner or movies with the girls. She gossiped about celebrities and work and politics. She had aspirations to be a painter, and vowed one day to visit New Zealand. She was pro-choice on the abortion issue, voted liberal and believed in God. She wanted a house of her own one day with a loving husband and a couple of kids. But not within the next 5 years. Her career was going well, and she was up for a promotion. She occasionally house-sat for her friend and never failed to make a joke about calling it “house sitting” when, really, her friend had an apartment – not a house.

He was her secret adventure. They got together to get away. To be intimate without detail and without attachment. They only had those two rules. Everything else was part of the fun. Sometimes they spent a whole day just drinking or smoking pot. Other times they went on weekend trips and made love on mountaintops. And once they simply fucked for a week straight, in a hotel room, without saying a single thing to each other. She had many names for him – Jack, Jacob, Terrence, Paul, Will, the list went on. These were not his fabrications but hers. She liked giving him different names for their different encounters.

The second time they ever met was in a crowded coffee shop a few years ago. It was her day off and she picked up a paper to read until he arrived. It became exceptionally crowded as the morning rush piled in and she found herself completely surprised when he was suddenly there, standing over the table. He always made great eye contact and smiled in a way that spoke. On this occasion, it was saying “I am glad you got a table.” She later learned with delight that it could say a lot more.

She noticed that he had a book with him, and asked about it. His reply was quotation. “The first rule about Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.” Today he was a Tyler, she decided with a smirk. From that meeting, they lay down the first rule of their own: no identifying details. They could talk about their wishes and their political views, their projects and their pleasures. But no names and no phone numbers. They were never to share the addresses of their homes or offices. The serendipity of their first meeting had ensured that they were not even certain that they lived in the same city. And in a meeting of minds and souls, they both knew they wanted to keep it that way.

~ ~ ~

The smoke rises from their cigarette, alongside the morning sun. They share it back and forth, laying naked and sweaty under white sheets. The window is open, and the smoke wanders towards it. “It’s your turn, you know,” she says as she blows smoke into his face with a grin. Delicately he takes the cigarette from her fingers as she looks to him for a reply. He smiles and says nothing, taking a long drag. Her hands wander playfully beneath the sheets, tracing down his stomach and then up his thigh. He lets out the smoke slowly. Laughing, she grips his growing arousal. “Do I have to pull it out of you?”

He breaths her scent in deeply. “You might have to.”

They play the morning away in vanilla pleasures. He tastes each part of her while she writhes. She mounts him until he is spent. They tease each other while they talk and laugh. Finally he gets up, a quarter past eleven.

“Where are you going?” she asks, admiring his naked form in the sunlight.

“Making us breakfast,” he replies, looking for his jeans.

“I think your pants are in the hallway. But you’re only allowed to wear an apron. It’s hung up on the fridge.”

~ ~ ~

“He doesn’t smoke,” they’d say. All his friends did, and so when they were all out on the town together, he was often asked by passer-bys if he could sell them a cigarette. As far as they were concerned, he’d never smoked anything in his life. When they gave him the mandatory ribbing about it, he just shrugged it off, explaining that it would set a bad example for his son. None of them were fathers, so that shut them up pretty good.

Don’t smoke, don’t drink, and don’t break the law, he taught. As well, good little boys never talk to strangers. His son meant the world to him and raising him properly, no matter what his relationship was like with his ex-wife (“who is a bitch” his friends also said), was the most important thing in his life. He got to visit on every other weekend, and on they traded Christmas and Spring Break.

It was on his way to visit his young man of 6, he first ran into her. While driving into the city, he stopped for a quick coffee and directions. He was running late, hated the drive, and was certain that his ex-wife had her wrath waiting for him when he arrived. He needed to change their arranged Thanksgiving plans because of his work, and had been cold over the phone. She was in the line up directly ahead of him, and he first noticed her when he overheard that she was short on a few cents of change. “I’ll have to pay with a $20.”

He called her Jane, as in Jane Doe. If he had had more time, he may have learned her name. Instead, he suggested what would later become the second and last rule of their relationship. After a brief chat waiting for their drinks, he invited her to meet her again at the coffee shop, Sunday morning. He quickly explained, with the most charming smile he could muster, that he had to go but would love to meet her again. If she wasn’t here, then no hard feelings and they’d probably never see each other again.

He didn’t know what he expected out of their next meeting. There was merely a hint of seduction, of life, of reality there. He had heard it in her voice, and he wanted to be around it again.

Later, they found security in the sentiment. Every time they met, one person would suggest when and where they would meet next time. If, at any time, either person no longer wanted to continue these meetings, they could simply not show up. Since they would also not exchange any personal information, they would have no way to contact the other. They would exist only as memories.

He never had any interest in bringing Jane into the rest of his life, which as it turned out, worked perfectly for both of them. They both had their lives exactly how they wanted. And so, when he went to visit her, his friends simply thought he was going out of town on business. His son heard how, in his spare time, his father climbed mountains to be on his own. Sometimes he went months without seeing Jane and sometimes it was only a couple of weeks. Once it had been well over a year.

As he left the shop that day, he couldn’t get how wonderful she smelled out of his head.

~ ~ ~

The smell of breakfast wafts into the bedroom. She stretches, waking from her doze. She finds her panties and scoops them off the floor on the way to the bathroom. Her hair is a mess.

He hears the shower start up down the hall, over the sizzle of bacon. He sets up one plate and one glass, with one knife and one fork. He finds some orange juice in the fridge and pours the glass full. He’s not a chef, but has manages to time eggs and bacon together while finding all of his clothes.

She shouts out the open bathroom door with a mock tone: “the bacon better be crispy!”

He smiles. Putting on his pants he checks the time. Everything is perfect, but he can’t stay. It’s probably better this way.

She enjoys the shower and lets the hot water refresh her skin. She wonders how much longer he will stay. She wants to spend as much time as she can with him, but she only has until this afternoon. She’s not looking forward to reminding him of that.

The breakfast is ready, and he hears the shower stop. He turns off all the burners and plates it up. Removing an envelope from his jacket pocket, he places it next to the orange juice, where she is sure to see it. With a last glance to the discarded bra that lay across a chair, he shows himself out.

They assured me that your identifiable information would be kept confidential, even from me.

Port-to-Port Traveller’s Agency
On Weston and 53rd St.
Passport, personal and insurance information needed to complete the process of your airline ticket for a 2 week trip to New Zealand leaving June 14th, 2010 from Johnson International Airport. Please arrive with this information no later than January 31st so that everything can be processed ahead of schedule. Reference #2157, Agent: Fresia

It’s all paid for. Dates are negotiable +/- a week in case your life doesn’t quite agree. They will update me. See you at the airport!