Chapter 41

As I reluctantly dragged my butt towards the hospital, resignedly enduring the usual SoCal crawling commute, somehow resisting the temptation to make a screeching U-turn and head back home, I considered how much more fun my life was since I’d gotten together with Mel.

Max is a great canine companion, but ... he’s a dog, not a human. Mel knocks spots off of him in so very many ways. Mel’s lips on mine, or Max’s tongue attempting to lick my face? – no contest. Max has been knocked into perpetual second place.

For one, she’s a whole lot better at wishing me a good day and telling me she can hardly wait to see me later than Max has ever been. When we do reunite, Max’s wild tail-wagging antics are more related to what I can do for him (a walk, food, play, treats) than wanting to be close to me in particular, whereas Mel’s huge white smile lights up the room and my heart.

Corny, I know, but I feel complete when I’m back with her.

There was a fashion a few years back, instead of telling somebody ‘See you soon’ whenever you said goodbye, it was ‘Missing You Already!’.

Yeah, I know, California at its tackiest...

Like the almost ubiquitous ‘air kisses’ between close acquaintances which are almost performance art, claiming false affection without risking damage to carefully applied makeup. And ‘DAAAAHHHLLING’ to somebody you’ve never met before...

But ... there was an element of truth here – I found I WAS missing Mel almost as soon as she was out of my sight.

Whenever I’ve missed Max, it’s been more along the lines of ‘did I remember to fill his water dish?’ or ‘he better be chewing the dog bone rather than the table leg!’

With Mel, it’s: ’damn, I WISH I could have stayed with her!’

I would have just loved to have called in to work that morning and been with Mel, just to hold her close and tell her again and again exactly how much she means to me. The idea of a morning making love with Mel had been tempting, very tempting indeed. Though, to be honest, I wasn’t sure quite how much I had left in the tank.

But...

Not only did we both have diary commitments that morning, but I have this rather awkward personal trait – a work ethic and sense of duty; I’ve never thrown a ‘sick’ day yet, and Dad would have paddled my ass if he’d ever known I’d even contemplated doing that.

And, in some strange way, I felt it would also have let Mel down. I wouldn’t have been doing my very best.

I realized I love Mel so much that nothing I can do for her is good enough to satisfy me. Even when I make her a cup of coffee, I worry that it will be too strong, or not hot enough, or not ‘just right’.

And I was beginning to suspect that she was going through the same process.

The Thai-style lemon chicken with noodles and a mixed salad she’d served up the night before had been a work of art; Marsha had NEVER come up with anything half as good. The years I’d been living alone, I wouldn’t have bothered cooking something like that from scratch for myself – I’d have ordered in. But Mel had spent some serious time and effort on it and had fully deserved my praise. She’d deprecated herself, saying it could have been a whole better. I’d disagreed.

I’d insisted on cleaning up after the meal, partly to reinforce the message to Mel that, unlike her own father, I intended to take a full share of all the household chores, but mostly because that’s the way Dad had brought us up – to express our appreciation of everything Mom did for us by doing what we could to help out. Words of praise and thanks are cheap and easy – actions speak for themselves.

Speaking of actions, I’ve mentioned before that I had doubts about whether I could ever match up to Mel’s previous sexual encounters. She’d had sex on camera with guys far better endowed than me, with serious muscles, with more experience and better skills – and, let’s be frank about this – almost inhuman endurance.

The thing that I DID have going for me was that we were in love with each other. Mostly we were making love rather than merely copulating. Though I dearly wanted to be able to totally fuck her brains out like no-one had ever done before and give her a new benchmark of ‘best ever’.

My thoughts drifted back to the previous evening, the “Agent in Place” movie, and how Darla Davis had played Atlanta’s clit like a true virtuoso.

I’d thought I was reasonably skilled at going down on a girl, but that lady had hit all of Atlanta’s orgasm buttons like she knew them better than Atlanta did herself.

I’ve noticed that Mel has two major ‘tells’ when she’s totally making it – she gets vertical lines on her forehead just above the eyebrows when she’s so close to getting there that it’s painful, and when she does hit a titanic orgasm, her eyeballs go back in her head. I’m doing well if I achieve one or the other in a lovemaking session – Darla had managed both ‘tells’ with hardly a hair out of place.

Though, thinking about how well Atlanta had reciprocated on Darla, whose hair HAD gotten seriously disarranged thrashing around in her orgasms, maybe the advantage was all genetic. I guess if you actually possess a clitoris and know precisely how it works, you kinda have a head start on stimulating someone else’s...

But I was almost at the hospital. No more time for reflection.

There was the usual line of cars to get into the parking structure, but the delay was only a few moments in the pass holders’ lane – we were simply waved in by the security lady rather than having to grab a token. Real people are so much more adaptable than any automated barrier.

Helga greeted me with a cheerful smile, a cup of fresh coffee and a smirky remark about my looking like I’d had a disturbed night. Maybe my goofy grin gave it away?

She also said my boss wanted a quick word as soon as convenient.

Which is polite speak for ‘now’.

I have a whole lot of respect for Laurence Powell. I couldn’t ask for a better chief – not that he gives me – or anyone – an easy ride professionally, but he’s always been straight with me and doesn’t play petty politics.

He canned my predecessor without any hesitation. Many people in his position would have taken one look at my age and looked outside the organization for the replacement: he gave me the opportunity, though the interview was the most stringent I’d ever endured. Once he’d offered me the deputy position, and I’d accepted, he did volunteer that I was fifteen years younger than he had been at the same stage of his career.

His secretary, Rachel Cortez, looked up as I walked into his outer office and beamed me a smile. She’s a cute thirty-something with long jet-black hair and a shelf of her cabinet filled with photos of her husband and kids. I’m guessing thirty-eight but looking ten years younger.

She’d given me a huge hug when word had gotten out that I was engaged – she’d offered to fix me up with a nice girl several times, but she didn’t bear a grudge that I’d never taken her up on one of her choices.

“Laurence is free, Mike, go right on in!”

Laurence (never Larry – that had been firmly impressed on me my very first day) grinned as he looked up.

“Mike, just checking, you are planning on bringing Mel to the event Friday?”

“Absolutely.”

He grinned, “That’s good, because Maddie’s coming along to keep her company, just in case you get buttonholed by one of the Board Members.”

Which wouldn’t be the first time one of them had tried to pitch their pet idea to me in what was supposed to be a social setting. But then, I’d never taken a ‘plus one’ before, and it hadn’t mattered overmuch if I was monopolized for part of the evening.

“Uh, thanks, I appreciate that. I’m sure Mel will be totally fine, but she’ll be glad of a friendly face. How is Maddie?”

“Doing very well, thanks. She’s working on our vacation plans right now. Three weeks on a cruise ship to Alaska and back. We’re looking forward to it.”

Three weeks on a cruise ship might be my idea of hell, but I guessed it could be the best way to appreciate the coastal wonders of Alaska. It would certainly beat driving those distances. From what I’d seen on the Discovery channel, Alaskans are a tough breed for a tough land, and life up there would be quite the contrast to Los Angeles. I remember one episode of ‘Northern Exposure’ when they were openly discussing the health of all the people in town, trying to work out how many graves needed to be dug before the ground became too frozen ... No, I definitely couldn’t live in that climate.

I wished he and Maddie a great vacation and returned to my own office to see what Wednesday was going to bring.

Maddie is Laurence’s third – and he insists final – wife. He’s never shared the details, but as they’ve been married twenty-four years, I assume he made a couple of short-lived mistakes straight out of college. Last year Maddie found a lump in her breast: it proved to be non-cancerous, but it gave them both one heck of a scare.