Chapter 4: Other people’s dreams

Al took her regular visit to Deb’s on New Year’s Eve. The library was closed, but she took the books. Anne would have to be satisfied with Milne.

“Aunt Al, do you like Cray?” Anne asked in a break from the poetry.

“His name is ‘Craig.’ Can you say ‘CraiG’?”

“Do you like Craig?”

“I like him very much,” Al said, “and I think you do to. I know that he likes you.”

“Then why didn’t he come with you?”

“He’s very far away. Remember he told you that he was going to take a trip? He told you how long he would be gone.”

“He’s far away like Daddy?” Anne asked. Anne couldn’t possibly remember Jerry, and -- if she had -- she would have been happy that he was out of her life. She damned-well knew, however, that little girls were supposed to have daddies.

“Yes and no. Your daddy is far away, and Craig is far away. But they are different, too. Craig is coming back. I know it seems a long time to you, but he has only been outside Chicago for two weeks, and he’s coming back to the city on Monday. He’ll be with me on my next visit, and we’ll go to the library again.”

“Okay.” This was what Anne said when she didn’t want you to persuade her any more, but you hadn’t really persuaded her.

Al wished she could be as certain as she tried to sound. Logic said he was coming back; she could talk to him on the phone, and he said he was coming back; his apartment was still here.

For that matter, if he wanted to break up with her, he didn’t have to move.

Still, he was in Denver, and she wished he’d come back. Until he did, she wished that he’d call.

Finally, late on Sunday, he did.

“Look, sorry this is so late,” he said. “Can you talk?”

“Sure.” She’d been tossing and turning, anyway. This was much more restful.

“It’s an hour earlier here. I share my nephew’s bedroom, and I can’t talk there. They have a half-bath on the ground floor, and I can come down here when they’re all in their bedrooms. Have I mentioned my nephew?”

“Only that your niece hates him,” she said. “Is thirteen still tragic?”

“Probably, but she’s fourteen now. He’s about to be eleven and is named Teddy. She’s Sharon, and still hates him, her mother, and life. She now has bumps; she gave me a hug.”

If she gave him a hug, she didn’t hate absolutely everybody absolutely all the time. “Are you coming home?”

“Tomorrow. Working that day?”

“Yeah. Lots of people get time off, but some don’t, and those who don’t need us to deal with their kids.”

“Company’s working, but I’m taking another vacation day. You’ll be at work when I land. Okay if I call you from the apartment? It’s earlier than you said.”

“Sure,” she said. “That was times I could guarantee was good for talking. Just like you said you were in a bad place, I now know you well enough to say that.”

They talked for a while more. Despite that added excitement, she slept more easily after.

She got a text message at work the next day. All the kids were hyper, and she couldn’t look until the end of the day.

| Ohare
| Love u
was all it said. Both messages were welcome. When he called, he invited her for dinner Wednesday and for a movie and a museum the next weekend. They were repeating restaurants, and Wednesday they ate at the Thai place they’d eaten at early on. He talked about his family. It was probably the first time he’d said more about himself than she had.

The “good-bye kiss” was intense but short for them. She took care of herself afterwards, mostly imagining what he would do Friday. She couldn’t use her mouth, but even his hand was much more arousing than hers.

Friday, the movie was highly hyped. Hollywood had, after all, nearly a month of production since their last date. It didn’t live up to the hype for her. The movie playing in her mind was more exciting. Dad’s Christmas gift had been money, and she’d bought herself a sexy nightie.

“Take your bathroom time first,” she told him. She took her things out of the case and put them away. She carried the robe he’d given her around the nightie and several hangers into the john with her. After all, she wasn’t taking much of a risk. He would have her naked, anyway, and she was coming to the time they would have real sex. All that his pushing it would mean was that she’d break up with him.

Still, she didn’t want to break up with him.

When she came out of the john, the living room was dark and a glow was coming from the bedroom.

Craig whistled when he saw her in the glow.

“And what’s this?” she asked, though it looked sexy.

“Night lights,” he said, “so you won’t be scared.”

“Nothing scares me.”

“Not even full penetration?”

Well, it really didn’t. She wasn’t going to go the rest of her life without real sex. This man had shown he’d take no for an answer, and he was clearly going to be her first. It was just a question of when.

And it sort of did. If his not forcing her was her being in control, saying yes was yielding control. And it was being conquered in a way that was an even greater conquest than being forced. Craig could force her. Hell! He picked her up to kiss her. That was part of its being so delicious to hold him back with a word.

“I don’t like to say yes,” she said.

“I’ve noticed.”

“Why don’t we say that if you get me to the place I can’t say no, then you can act as if I’ve said yes?”

He opened the drawer in his night stand and took out the box. He put a Trojan on the night stand and put the box back in the drawer. Was he taking her for granted? Well, could he take her beyond coherent speech? He’d always done it before.

He began with her face between his hands. The kiss was gentle, and then he sucked her lip. When his tongue sought entry, she welcomed it. His hands stroked her shoulders, down to her waist. He squeezed her hips once, and then swept upward to cup her breasts. He pulled the sash of her robe.

“Delicious Alicia,” he said. He stroked the skin of her waist and then turned her around by her shoulder. She raised her arms obediently when he pulled up her robe. Then he nibbled her neck while bringing his hands up to cup her breasts through the nightie.

“Yours,” she said and turned to tug at the sash of his robe. He tossed the robe somewhere. He was topless but still wearing his slacks. Then she was against his cool, scratchy skin for one more kiss. He really took his time and ran his tongue all through her mouth. He stroked his open hands up and down her back, pulling her harder against his chest.

She’d finally given him permission to fuck her, but he seemed determined to make love to her instead.

He raised her new nightie, and she lifted her arms again. Then he picked her up and carried her the few steps to the bed. He lay her down gently. He kissed up her leg, finally ending with a kiss on her leg just where it met her lips.

Now, she was naked before him, and he looked at her center until she felt her face heat. He kissed her stomach between the belly button and her pubic hair. She wriggled under his lips. But then he trailed the kisses up.

He kissed her stomach, and the heat fluttered there. He kissed the underside of her breast, and the nipple firmed. He sucked that nipple, and the fire flickered to life deep in her stomach.

As he licked and sucked and nibbled up her chest and neck, the heat flared at a point much lower in her body,

He was nearly off her, his chest scraping only her right breast as his hand stroked lower. Then his tongue parted one set of lips while his finger parted another. She shivered, and she could feel his lips smile against her.

His strokes brought her quickly to the edge, and she stiffened. He slowed his strokes then stopped them completely.

She moved her head aside to allow speech. “Please, Craig, please.” She could hear him chuckle with his mouth right next to her ear. His tongue stabbed into her ear, and she jumped. Then his fingers took slow, deliberate strokes. The fire burned.

It flared, and she writhed under his hand.

“Yes, Alicia,” he crooned, “Yes, darling. You are so hot.” He kissed the side of her face. As he got to her neck, his finger began stroking again. He wriggled down the bed as she wriggled less purposely. She was hot, needful, and he kept her on that edge. He was below the level of her waist. His hands left her center to lift her right leg way up. He rolled under it, and he kissed her left thigh up towards her center.

She was all tension when he licked her lips open. Then he was on her clit. His tongue! His lips! His sucking!!

She burst apart. As he kept sucking, the fragments splintered, too.

When he stopped arousing her, she collapsed. She could feel him moving between her legs, but she was too busy catching her breath to keep track.

Then his legs were between hers, and they were bare, hairy, but hairy skin. She could feel him part her lips and something very smooth and a little cool was there.

“Alicia, delicious Alicia,” he said, “say yes.”

“Yes.”

His hands cupped her breasts, and the smoothness between her lips pressed inward. It spread her; there was a slight pinch; he was filling her.

“Oh, love,” he said with his face above hers. The light all came from below, but the ceiling was bright. She could almost see by that. “Oh, tell me that it’s all right.”

“Yes,” she said again.

He was moving within her and strumming her nipples. His motion went across the top of her groove. He was no longer cool, but burning hot within her. The heat spread.

Then it burst into flame, and she convulsed. He rammed into her and stayed there above her.

She felt herself clutch around him, and then felt him pulse within that clutch. That was what those feelings were supposed to produce.

“Darling!” he gasped. He dropped on her, but wasn’t as heavy as you’d think. A long time later, he moved himself off. She felt him slide out of her.

There was a thump from his side of the bed. Then he pulled her close and covered them with the sheet. Something sticky was pressed against her rump.

Then she slept although he hadn’t turned off the light.

She woke in the night and went to the bathroom. The night lights made it easy to find her way out of the bedroom, but the bathroom lights were glaring when she turned them on. She took the hangers with her clothes to the closet when she came back. She found her sexy new nightie and put it on before she got into bed. Craig was bare naked.

Al felt surprisingly cheerful for a morning, and it wasn’t only the long sleep. Craig seemed to be trying not to smirk. He wasn’t succeeding. Well, he deserved to smirk.

He had a dozen eggs in the refrigerator and the bacon seemed to have thawed out. She’d have to fix something besides sunny-side up eggs someday. What did they need for a western omelet?

He brought her a cup of coffee and the Equal. She downed the coffee and began to feel even better.

“You said once that if we had sex, I’d remember it,” she said. “Well, we did, and I remember it.” Coming was delightful, but coming around him was even better.

“I love you.”

“That isn’t love; it’s lust.”

“Are they necessarily exclusive? Terrible comment on marriage if they are.”

Well, marriage was a terrible comment, anyway. They had a nice affair going, particularly nice this morning. He shouldn’t bring up marriage to spoil it.

She remembered that Craig had had one more victory the night before. She had, ultimately, said yes. The consequences had been fine. So that was what those spasms were; they were muscles trying to contract around him.

She was Craig Warren’s woman, and it felt like a fine thing to be. And she had him, too, if not so intimately as she’d had him last night. Now she, too, was smirking.

She took her Pill feeling that it was earned instead of an insurance policy.

“I had planned on the Oriental Institute for today. It’s a small museum, apparently connected to the University of Chicago. Somehow, we need something more celebrative for today, but a bigger museum would mean a repeat.”

“Let’s go with your plan.” After all, his plans had been fine for the previous night.

It was a nice place, nothing you’d repeat soon since it was easy to see all in one visit.

They ate in the Loop and took in some of the windows on State Street where the Christmas displays had not yet been taken down. Craig stopped off at a liquor store to buy some champagne. They put it in the refrigerator of his apartment. Their clothes were a little wet, and they turned on the shower to warm the bathroom so they could change. He rubbed her down, and she got into one of the new panties he’d bought. They fit.

Then they went to a steak house to celebrate. She wore the clothes she’d worn the night before, and he wore the suit he’d worn on their first date.

“It was bought new for job interviews,” he explained. The IT department doesn’t wear suits at work, and I very much doubt that I’ll ever wear it out. Bury me in it.”

They came back giddy, and maybe a little loud, even though they hadn’t had a drink at dinner.

“It was our first time,” Craig said. “Wasn’t it your first time?”

“I told you that.”

“Well, that deserves champagne, even if it’s a little late.” He got the biggest glasses he had. He opened the bottle, which produced quite a bit of fizz. Then he filled the glasses. The fizz wouldn’t last, he explained, and so they needed to drink the bottle up that night. By the time they had, both were more than a little drunk. He grabbed her and gave her a hard kiss. He was groping her.

“The dress!” she said. “It’s a good dress.”

“Well, get out of it.”

“Only in the bedroom. You promised. And you have to strip, too.”

She got the closet, and he tossed the good suit on a chair. Still, she put on the robe and waited until his last clothes were off. She took off her panties, not quite revealing herself under the robe.

When he was naked, he pulled a kid’s book off his dresser and held it in front of his groin.

“Not until you do,” he said.

“You must owe a huge late fine on that.” It was “Hop on Pop.” She thought he’d returned it months ago.

“This is my book. I got Dad to bring it to Denver.”

“Lie on the floor,” she said. She’d suddenly remembered his reading to Anne. “You’re going to read it to me.”

When he was on the floor on his back, she straddled him. Seeing where his eyes were going, she opened the robe.

“Start reading.” He got the words out, but he didn’t seem to be looking at the book. She squatted down and took his cock in her hand.

“You really need a bit of lubrication for that.”

“You mean Vaseline?” she asked. That didn’t sound appealing.

He reached between her legs and started stroking. “Bend over and offer me a nipple.” She opened the robe more and did as he asked.

Soon, she was hot from his touches. She eased herself down on him while guiding him into her. When it didn’t seem to fit, he shifted her position until it did. He wasn’t cool, now; he was warm and living. She felt a slight friction against her. She eased back, and he stretched her, filled her. The fullness thrilled her.

“Not hopping,” he said, “slow.” He held her right breast and stroked his thumb across the nipple. “Find what pleases you most.” He returned his hand to between her legs, and his finger found her clit.

The heat built. Suddenly, she wasn’t playing a game. She moved in the way that he was most arousing within her. Suddenly, she lost control. She dropped down; her clit hit his finger hard; the fire burst out and shook her.

When next she was conscious of her surroundings, she was lying on Craig, One of his arms was across her back, but the other was trapped under her. He was throbbing within her. Then he seemed to be shrinking.

“Like this,” he said, “you have to get up first.” She could see that, but she couldn’t gather the energy to actually move.

When she could, she eased into a sitting position and then rose a bit. He popped out of her, and then something rushed down after him. She crouched there dripping for minutes. Despite the robe, she was getting chilly. She felt the last of it run down her leg while she rushed to the bathroom. When she got back to the bedroom, he was wiping himself off with his tee shirt.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Most of it’s mine, anyway. It feels like less when it’s in one of the rubbers. Christ, woman, that was your second time?”

“Well, you got me drunk.”

“If that’s the result, I may try again.” He found some slippers and wore them -- and nothing else -- to the bathroom. He turned off the lights on his way back. She was in her nightie and under the covers by the time he got back. He took off his glasses and put them on the night stand.

He was cold again, and limp, against her butt. By the time she fell asleep, he was warm and less limp.

The morning was notably less pleasant. Craig got her two Tylenol and a glass of water first thing. She took her Pill with the rest of the water. Then she started cooking breakfast. Thoughts of other menus had flown away.

“Lots of coffee, lots of water, take it slow until the aspirin kicks in.”

“I thought you gave me Tylenol.”

“I did. Knew a guy once who called root beer Coke.”

“Knowing an idiot doesn’t excuse being an idiot,” she said.

“The less we say, the less we’ll regret saying.”

And, half way through the fourth cup of coffee, she did regret that comment. She took a long hot shower and came out of it feeling almost human.

Craig recommended going back to bed.

“Alone?” she asked.

He smiled. “Either way. They say that misery loves company.”

Instead, she got dressed. He took a shower and then dressed, as well. She wanted to go back to the apartment, and he drove her.

“I think we have to be clear about the new rules,” he said. “Am I still required to use rubbers?”

“I’m on the Pill.”

“And I’m not allowed to act on any ideas that might arouse.”

“I’ll take care of the contraception,” she said. He certainly took rules seriously. “One new rule, though, next weekend is off limits.”

“Even making out?”

“I think so.”

He didn’t say anything, and didn’t ask why. She could explain about periods, but she’d rather not.

“But we do deal with Anne?” he asked.

“Of course.”

Despite what she’d told Craig, back at her apartment, she did go to bed. He was her sun dial, and she only wanted to share the shining hours.

She woke soon after noon, hungry. She took a single Tylenol, more for prevention than need, and cooked lunch.

Sasha came in, took a cup of coffee, and sat across from her. “So what happened to you?” she asked.

“Hangover.” Sasha would get the whole story out of her, and she wasn’t in the mood for the extraction process. “Craig bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and we killed the whole thing.”

“Celebrate?”

“We did the deed Friday night, but we had the celebration Saturday night.”

“How was it?”

“It was worth celebrating, but I’m not drinking half a bottle of champagne again.”

“The guy good in bed?”

“He was always good in bed. That didn’t stop, except last night he was good on the floor.”

“He took you on the floor?”

“I sort of took him. Look, it’s a long story, and I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

She did. In return, Sasha suggested taking one fewer of the placebos so her next period would start on Monday instead of Tuesday.

She met Craig to take Anne to the library. They all went to Craig’s apartment. After hamburgers, he read to Anne from his copy of “Hop on Pop.” She cleared the table to hide her blushes.

“May I kiss you good bye?” he asked when Anne was safe in her apartment and he’d walked her to her car.

“Kiss.” They’d taken that idea to an extreme that neither her internal situation nor the open parking spot suited. So, he kissed her; their tongues met, but not for long.

From the time she left him, she spent a lot of time imagining their next time together. She realized that, while they had opened a door into a new relationship, she had no idea how that relationship would work.

Their first time had been a challenge she had set. He should bring her to a point where she couldn’t say no. He had really taken her to a point where she had to say yes. But he’d taken her to a comparable point before. There had been times downstairs in her building that he could have laid her on the hard floor with people likely to be walking past and had her then.

Their second time, she’d demanded what she would never again. The thought had lingered in her brain from seeing Anne bouncing on his stomach.

They would have sex, but what would be their new standard?

Apparently, Craig had been thinking along similar lines. Being Craig, he’d been plotting, not wondering.

The movie had been a comedy. Judging from the laughter around them, if had deserved more attention than she’d given it. Craig had carried her case up the stairs, taken her coat, and given her a thorough kiss.

“Could you do me a favor?” he asked. “Could you wear the night gown I left in the closet for you tonight?” The nightie was a baby doll, but then so was the one she’d worn two weeks before. She took it with her to the bathroom and returned wearing it and the robe. She turned off the overhead light and got into bed. The sheets were chilly, but they soon warmed. Craig had the night lights, still, and -- as her eyes adjusted -- the ceiling got brighter and brighter.