Chapter 4

"Would you like to come to dinner at my place?" asked Layla, as soon as they were outside. It was the first thing she'd said to him since they'd quit reading.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" he asked.

She stopped and turned to face him. She didn't say anything. She just stared at him, waiting for him to answer her question.

"I'd love to," he said.

She smiled.

"Good," she said. "I'll go pick up Aidan. Give me two hours before you come over, OK?"

"Can I bring something with me?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"You know ... wine ... a cake ... something?"

"Wine and I don't get along too well," she said. "And the kind of cake I like you probably couldn't find." She thought for a minute. "Ice cream. Aidan and I both love ice cream."

Layla hummed as she fiddled with things in the kitchen. Cooking was not her strong suit. She didn't know Bob all that well, but she had the distinct feeling that a man who had been around the world a couple of times wouldn't complain about anything she fed him. For all she knew he'd eaten disgusting things in faraway places. Monkey brains came to mind, for some reason, and she sang one of her favorite songs to drive that out of her mind.

As she sang at full volume she was also dancing, gyrating wildly and waving a spoon in the air, when, as she whirled, Bob was suddenly standing in the kitchen door. Aidan was by his side, holding his hand. She jerked to a stop.

"You scared the CRAP out of me!" she gasped.

"Aidan let me in," he said.

Layla looked at her son, who was beaming.

"Baby," she moaned. "I've told you never to open the door to strangers."

"Bob's not a stranger," piped Aidan.

"He did check me out in the peep hole before he let me in," said Bob.

Layla pushed past them, to stare at the front door. A straight backed chair from the dining room had been pulled to the door. Aidan had apparently stood on it to look through the peep hole, like he had seen her do before. The chair was now sitting beside the door.

Bob knelt, to put his face at Aidan's level.

"How 'bout we make a new rule?" he said. "From now on only Mommy answers the door, unless she's too sick to open it, OK?"

"You mean like if I should call 911?" asked the little boy.

Bob's eyebrows rose. "Exactly," he said.

"OK!" said Aidan. "I'm going to go draw. You want me to draw you a picture, Bob?"

"Sure," said Bob, standing up as the boy ran back into the living room.

Bob turned to Layla.

"Sorry," he said. "Once he had the door open I pretty much had to come in."

"He's too smart sometimes," complained Layla.

"Smells good," said Bob. His eyes ran up and down her body. "Looks good too."

"Are you flirting with me?" she asked.

"Uh huh," he said.

"I wasn't going to wear this, tonight," said Layla, looking down at her T shirt and jeans.

"Oh?" he said. "Well then go ahead and take it off. I don't mind."

As has been stated before, but bears repeating here, Layla was the kind of person who sometimes made decisions on a hunch. Or maybe she just went with the flow of whatever she was feeling. The pragmatic side of her didn't do a lot of soul searching when she felt like she wanted something. Of course it was more complicated than that. If she wanted something, and could afford it, she got it. If she couldn't afford it, she spent a little time wishing she could, and then went on with her life. If she wanted to do something, and it seemed reasonably safe, she did it. If there were hazards involved, she tried to work things out so the hazards were dealt with. If the hazards couldn't be mitigated, she spent a little time wishing they could, and then went on with her life.

With Bob, it was similar. At some point, she had decided that she wanted more of what Bob had to offer. There was a complicated kind of evaluation of that "want" that went on. Some of it was conscious. When his finger had been deep inside her, in the studio, giving her luscious pleasure, she had thought to herself "I like this and I want more of this." Some of it was unconscious too, and involved her arriving at the conclusion that she didn't care how old he was and that she didn't know him as well as she probably should. Her gut instinct was that he was a good man ... or at least as good a man as she'd ever met ... and that was enough to mitigate some of the hazards her unconscious mind worried at.

She knew he wanted her. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but she knew. She had felt his passion in his kisses, and what he'd done for her in the studio had been for her benefit—not his. At least not for his immediate benefit. That made him different, in her mind, from other men she'd met. Other men had done things for her ... but they always wanted something in return, and they wanted it then and there. Bob hadn't asked for anything.

"I can't take off my clothes right now," she said. "Not with Aidan awake."

"I was kidding," said Bob.

"No you weren't," she said, going to him and kissing him gently on the lips. "You'd like to see me naked right now."

"I'm just here for dinner," he said weakly.

"Oh?" She didn't smile. Her hand drifted down his arm and went between them, to feel gently at the front of his pants. It was the first time she'd ever touched him there.

"You're not playing fair," he said, looking into her eyes.

"My house ... my rules," she said. Her fingers felt for ... and squeezed the lump she found.

"What's come over you?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

"I think a man named Bob has come over me," she said. She let go of him and stepped back. "Which is kind of strange, since I don't even know his last name."

"What difference does it make," he asked. "Bob is what people call me. I don't know your last name either. Layla is enough for me. Happy to meet you." He stuck out his hand.

It was so ludicrous that she giggled and then laughed. She took his hand and shook it like a man.

Supper was anticlimactic in the sense that it didn't seem at all abnormal. She and Aidan usually ate alone, and they were used to that. But his being there didn't seem odd. He sat down at the kitchen table while she finished getting the meal ready, so they just ate there, instead of in the dining room. They ate and talked, and pretty soon it was over. Aidan went to watch a video, leaving Layla and Bob in the kitchen.

She got up to clean up and he offered to help.

"I'll just do the dishes later," she said.

"Go ahead and get it out of the way," he suggested. "I'll help. Then we'll be done."

"Are you in a hurry to leave?" she asked, looking through her eyelashes at him.

"Nope," he said. "I just don't want you to have to do this after I leave. I don't want the last thing you associate with me to be, 'Awww, I have to do the dishes!'" He spoke in a falsetto voice that sounded like an old woman and she laughed.

"You don't sound anything like me," she said.

"I'd be scared to death if I did." He smiled.

She washed and he dried. They talked about movies they liked, and found that a lot of them were the same, particularly the comedies. She told him where to put things when they were dried. At one point he stopped behind her and put his hands on her waist. He kissed her scalp, where a fuzz of new grown hair tickled his lips.

"I've never felt anything like that," he said.

"It's about time to shave that again," she replied, pushing her head toward his lips.

"I could do that for you," he offered.

"Yeah, right," she said. "That's my head we're talking about. People will see it."

"I thought you didn't care what people thought," he said.

"I do if it's been butchered."

"I am wounded," he moaned theatrically. "To think that you think I would butcher your hair!" He gave an obviously false sob.

"It's not as easy as shaving your chin," she said. She turned her face toward him. "Oh yeah ... I forgot. You don't shave your chin. You don't shave anything. I think I'll do what I usually do instead."

"Picky, picky, picky," he said, sliding his hands to her stomach and up.

His hands bumped into the lower swells of her breasts, but stopped there. She found herself wishing that his hands would go higher. She let her head fall back and turned it toward him, feeling the softness of his beard on her cheek.

"Kiss me," she said.

"Are we rehearsing?" he teased.

"Why do you think I invited you here?" she asked.

"Dinner," he said.

"And to rehearse," she said into his beard. "Today we had to repeat too many lines. It's not professional."

"Did you read ahead?" Bob's voice was soft in her ear.

"Uh huh," she said.

Now his hands came up onto her breasts. She pushed them back down, but grabbed his wrists, moving his hands to her hips, to drag them back up under her T shirt. He got it and she let go as his hands slid up her smooth, flat stomach and covered her naked breasts. He rubbed them in circles first, then used his fingers on the nipples.

"Mmmmmm," she said. It would have sounded perfect on tape.

She arched her neck and he kissed her. It was awkward because her face was sideways and upside down, from his frame of reference. It didn't matter, though.

"When is Aidan's bedtime?" he asked, his lips still brushing hers.

"In a while," she said, reaching for another kiss.

"You're torturing me," he accused.

"You seduced me," she said.

"I did not!" He kissed her again and squeezed her nipples.

"Yes you did," she said. "I'm completely innocent here. You're a dirty old man who preys on innocent, young, single mothers."

"Why did you bring me here, then?" he asked.

"We have to rehearse," she said into his lips. "I need the money."

It was, perhaps, the longest hour and a half in Bob's life. Once they separated, in the kitchen, she took his hand and pulled him to the living room. There was a computer set up along one wall and Layla went to it to activate the screen.

"I need to get a little work done," she said. "Can you entertain Aidan for a bit?"

"Work?" he asked.

"I administer some web sites," she said. "I design them and then run them for people."

"Wow," said Bob, impressed.

"Not as cool as it sounds," she said. "I don't quite make enough to get by on that alone. What I need to do won't take that long."

"Knock yourself out," said Bob.

Old skills came into play there as Bob spent time with the little boy. Bob had always been a pretty good daddy and was right at home with Aidan, looking at his drawings, playing games and reading a story. He had to laugh when he asked if Aidan wanted to be read a story and Aidan turned to his mother.

"Is this a bedtime story?" he asked.

Layla checked her watch. "Not unless it's a really long one," she said.

"OK."

Aidan found a book and announced it was NOT a long story. Bob read it to him, and then Aidan read it to Bob. He needed a little help on some words, but Bob was impressed that a boy so young could already read pretty well.

Finally Layla turned around.

"Bedtime!" she chirped.

"I don't WANT to go to bed," said her little boy.

"I know that," said Layla. "But it's bedtime."

"Then I get a bedtime story!" he announced.

Bob read him one more story which, when it was chosen, was much longer than the previous one. Bob grinned at Layla, who rolled her eyes.

Then he sat ... waiting ... while mother and son went through their routine. That seemed to take forever too, though when he looked at his watch only five or six minutes had passed.

She came back into the room, her script in her hand. Bob looked up at her from where he was sitting.

"I didn't bring my script," he said.

"You can look at mine."

Bob was a little breathless.

To be honest, that was more because of the way things had progressed, rather than him being out of shape. He'd been around the world, and he'd had his share of sexual encounters, but he'd never met a woman quite like Layla.

What he wasn't aware of was that once Layla made up her mind about something, she didn't question that. At least not until something happened to make her question an original decision. Sometimes that happened. In this case ... when she'd made up her mind about Bob, nothing had happened ... yet ... to make her wonder if she'd done the right thing or not.

That was why she suggested that they'd be more comfortable ... rehearsing ... on her bed. It was also why, when Bob followed her into the room, she lifted the T shirt up and over her head like it was the most normal thing in the world to do. She left her jeans on, crawled onto the bed, fussed with the pillows until she was comfortable, then lifted her script to page through it.

Bob just stood and looked at her. This was the point at which he began breathing a little more deeply.

Layla looked away from the script and up at him. It was the kind of look that would have been over the top of her glasses, had she needed glasses and been wearing them.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"You took off your shirt," he said.

"You want to know the first thing I ever thought about you?" she asked, still peering at him.

"Um ... OK."

"I thought to myself that I had gotten stuck with a master of pointing out the obvious."

"What?" He seemed confused.

"I don't remember what it was you said, but it was something that any idiot would have already noticed." She spread her arms, to fully expose her breasts to him. "You're doing that again."

"Oh," he said, feeling his penis begin to fill with blood. "I guess it just surprised me, that's all."

"Bob," she sighed. "A few hours ago you were sucking my nipples like a starving baby. And now you're surprised I'd let you see them?"