Chapter 6: A Taste Of Doom

One might say I learned a lesson. Of sorts.

When we returned from St. Kitts, Lou's company had not turned its back on us. There was a signed contract on my desk. Lou went with the most expensive and ambitious of the joint venture ideas I had come to present.

Alex was proud. I just groaned. I told him I would not work on it if it meant meeting Lou again. His eyebrows rose. But he never asked.

I was faithful to George for the rest of that year. And beyond.

That sounds more heroic than it was. It was easy not to cheat. For one reason because I felt no urge at all to do it. And secondly, George's sweet unselfish reactions to my panic attack shamed me out of all interest I might have developed.

I felt no guilt for giving in to Lou's advances. I was just shocked by the way I had come to take George's love for granted. I promised that I would never do that again.

But, well, you know me by now. I am not a noble person. George is, I am not.

Our company had long since discovered the magical marketing powers of wine tasting sessions. The combination of a luxury hotel, good food, music and the intoxicating presence of expensive European wines never failed to bring together crowds of exactly the right people.

Enter, Alec.

Alec was a connoisseur of wines. (And an alcoholic, I'm sure. Probably a professional hazard.) He looked the part. He wore his fifty years in the most suave way. Considering his hedonistic lifestyle he looked remarkably fit, even elegant. His hair was pepper and salt. It curled artistically over his collar. I never liked mustaches much, but his seemed at ease with his personality.

He dressed expensively. And I don't know what sun shines in wine cellars, but he always had a tan.

Our wine-tasting events had grown in popularity since we brought Alec into play. He had charm and effervescence. His casual use of all the right wine lingo made the middle-aged ladies flock to him in herds. They lapped it up like puppies.

I was rather skeptical. Until that one night at the Hilton.

Alec had guided us through an impressive army of Cote du Rhones and St. Emilions. We of course were supposed to spit out what we tasted. We were to nibble on a crumb of baguette before tasting the next glass and then spit it out again. But hey, those were great wines.

They got even better as the evening wore on. To boil the whole thing down to its essence, I was rather buzzed when the clock neared eleven. And so were quite a few of our lady guests.

Alec was marvelous.

He never stopped amusing us with jokes and anecdotes. He dropped names and warmed us with stories of far away chateaux and ooh la la places.

Don't make me explain how we ended up at the hotel bar. Don't even begin to ask me how I ended up in his hotel bed. I tasted and didn't spit. His crunchy baguette never lost its freshness. The heady bouquet of our heated sex wafted through the room.

Even the after taste was pleasant.

There was no sense in waking up George to tell him he'd better not wait up, don't you agree? Yes, I know. I am a bad girl. I can't be cured.

I crawled into our marital bed long after George had fallen asleep. I was quiet enough not to wake him up, I hope. He never commented.

He just asked how things had been when he returned from work the next evening. I of course had slept in that morning. I never heard him leave. I did make a glorious dinner, though. George has this stomach weakness, you know. I mean he loves good food.

I waited for him wearing only an apron and holding out a glass of a rather expensive malt whiskey. Both were gone in the blink of an eye.

The wine with the dinner was one (actually, two) of the highly praised Cote du Rhones of the night before. I pointed out all of its qualities to George. I even remembered two or three of the juicier anecdotes.

We went to bed. There we devoted the rest of the night to another very satisfying tasting session. And to the expert nibbling of another excellent baguette. Home baked.

Ah well, I may be bad. But I'm good.

My next lover was Mr. Garfield.

He was the one I didn't have sex with. I never even used his first name. To be totally correct, we never even met.

He lives in California, where he owns quite a few vineyards. We were a client of his. His white wines especially became a featured highlight in our catalogue.

Mr. Garfield hated meeting people.

The two times we visited his lovely mansion, he apologized for not being able to see us. I understand he always does this. So I never came eye to eye with Mr. Garfield.

I did see a few pictures. They were rather vintage, I guess. They also might have been from Errol Flynn or another long-gone Hollywood actor. I looked it up. Gregory Peck, most likely.

Mr. Garfield must be ancient.

So he may not have had a face, but he did have a voice. It was the kind that crawls up to you and slips under your skin. The velvet kind of voice that you disparage when you talk with your friends. "Too schmaltzy," you tell them. "Too smooth an operator." But you never say how it makes your pussy flow.

Mr. Garfield was also a master of the seductive word.

So when I say I didn't have sex with him, I am only legally right. Let's say in the Clinton way. To be true, I had some of the steamiest sex with Mr. Garfield, and I never left my office for it.

Mr. Garfield made me do things. Like taking off my bra and playing with my nipples. Or wriggling out of my panties and touching my itchy clit.

One day he made me sit at my desk completely naked without locking my door.

Another day he told me to hang up the phone and return home. I was to remove all of my underwear and then retrieve my vibrator from the bedroom, take it back to my office, set it for the highest speed and then slip it into my cunt and wait for him to call me.

It might take a while, he said, but I was forbidden to orgasm until he called.

"Do you understand, Anne?"

"Yes, Mr. Garfield. No coming until you call."

"Good girl. Now run." I was a good girl.

He called after I had already been back for half an hour. It was the most excruciating half hour of my life. It took only the first ringing of my phone to make me come like a volcano. I still shuddered with after-spasms when he asked me if it was me he heard screaming.