Chapter 3

Three things happened very quickly that changed the situation considerably. Kendall was promoted to account executive, a move everybody had expected for a long time, and I was promoted to Kendall's old job, a move I for one had not expected, but it meant I got a substantial raise and Kendall was no longer my boss. And then Kendall was sent away to Northwestern University for a two-week seminar.

Kendall's plane was barely in the air on that Monday in May when Karen called me.

"There's something I need you to help me with," she said. "Can you come by tonight? After eight?"

"Sure," I said.

"Great," she said. "And Philip ... take a taxi."

"Okay."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Take a taxi? I always drove to their apartment and parked in the visitor section. Nobody would notice; it wasn't unusual. Unless I stayed parked there overnight. The neighbors might notice that.

I took a taxi, and I even told the driver to stop at the apartment complex next door. I walked to their apartment and rang the bell. When Karen opened the door she was wearing a long gauzy gown and nothing else. Candles lighted the room. There was soft music.

"Karen," I gasped.

"Close the door, Philip."

I closed the door. Karen unfastened something at her throat and the gown dropped to the carpet.

She stood there a little stiffly, her chin up, her shoulders back, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Her swimming suit hadn't left much mystery about the shape of her body, but now, standing naked, the candles casting flickering golden patterns on her pale skin, she was a breathtaking revelation.

"My god, Karen, you're lovely!"

"That book you gave me ... it's not enough. I want you to teach me about sex."

I was drinking in the sight of her. The delicate architecture of her shoulders and her collarbones. The intricate web of blue veins under the alabaster skin of her breasts. Her narrow waist and her softly rounded belly and her gently swelling hips and her impossibly long legs. Her slim bare feet, the toes twitching in sympathy with her fingers. And she was offering all of this to me.

So of course I picked up her gown, placed it on her shoulders, and turned away and walked out through the door.

That's what I had decided I would do. I had pretty much figured out what to expect. And I was going to be sensible. Karen was a married woman and my friend, and her husband was my friend.

But it didn't happen. I didn't walk away. She was so vulnerable I just couldn't.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Philip, look at me. I'm naked. Does it look like I'm not sure?"

And so I took her in my arms. The touch of her skin was electric. It sent tremors through us both. I kissed her. She kissed back. And all the repressed sexuality between us exploded in that kiss. And when it ended the universe had changed. The connection we had been growing for so long seemed complete now, and only the two of us mattered. For the moment, everything was just right. And there was no hurry as we both removed my clothes.

There were candles in the bedroom too. Sitting on the side of the bed, we kissed again.

"I feel happiness inside me, Philip. It's filling me up so full it's stretching my skin. And everywhere you touch me I feel it ten times more."

"Lie down," I said. "I want to touch you all over."

She twisted on the bed and sank down on her back, her hands clasped above her head, making her whole body available to me. I gently unclasped her hands and laid them palm-up on the pillow. I placed my fingertips in the center of one of her palms, and I slowly stroked her skin from her palm down to the inside of her elbow. She quivered.

"I don't know what's happening," she said. "That felt like you were touching me inside my vagina."

I touched her lips with a fingertip. "We'll get there," I said. "There's no hurry."

Gently I caressed her lips, stroking her hair with my other hand. And then I traced her eyebrows and touched her temples and held her face between my hands. "I want this to take a long time."

I kissed her again, and this time her lips parted. She gasped as our tongues touched. I was struggling to control the urgency of my own desire. I had wanted this for so long, and it was hard not to want it all right now. But I knew what Karen needed.

I took her hand and kissed her fingertips. I took her fingers into my mouth one by one and caressed them with my tongue. I kissed her palm, and the inside of her wrist. She was breathing heavily already. Slowly I kissed my way to her torso. I kissed her armpit and breathed the subtle odor of her arousal. I closed my lips around her collarbone and touched the little bump in the middle with my tongue. Her perfectly formed little breasts were rising and falling with her breaths, and her nipples were fully erect. They didn't seem much longer, but they were hard when they poked into my palms like firm little fingers when I filled my hands with her tits.

"You have beautiful breasts," I said.

"Small," she murmured.

"Perfect," I said. "Just right!"

I began to kiss them all over, avoiding the nipples at first. Her body began to squirm, and she started to make a little humming sound. I closed my lips around a nipple, and she cried out.

"Oh, Philip! Oh!"

I flicked her nipple with my tongue. She caught her breath. I moved to her other breast, and she moved her hands to my head, stroking my hair and holding my head to her chest. Gently I pulled away and kissed my way down her body, pausing to swirl my tongue around in her navel. Her abdomen was heaving a little now.

"Philip, what's happening to me? I feel so strange."

I put my hand on her belly, just above her mons, and began to stroke her gently. "How so?" I asked.

"My ... vagina," she said. "It's not really ... itching; it's not burning. It's kind of like that though. And up inside me it's like I'm getting all fluttery. It's kind of a fluttering pressure inside my womb and I can't help moving my hips."

Yes, her hips were moving now. And I could feel the fluttering under my hand. But did she really not understand what was happening?

"Nobody has ever made me feel like this before," she said.

Incredible, I thought. But maybe she was as innocent as she sounded. Maybe Kendall just didn't have a clue. Or care.

Her breaths were almost like gasps now. If she was this worked up already, I thought, what would happen when I touched her pussy?

"Oh! Oh! Ohhh!" She choked back her cry, anxious not to get too loud. I stroked her pussy gently as she rocked it against my hand. She was moist and warm.

"Oh, Philip, you're making me feel so good. Ohohhh! Mmmgh!"

That's how she reacted when I started spreading some of her moisture around her clit. She was trying hard not to make noise. The apartment walls were thin.

"Philip ... could you ... do you mind ... would you show me cunnilingus?"

Would I eat the pussy of this gorgeous, naïve creature who had made me come in my dreams more than once these past several months?

"With pleasure," I said. "But first I want to do something that's just for me."

I sat back on my heels between her knees and I put my hands on those incomparable legs. I let my fingers roam around on her thighs and her calves and her perfect knees, feeling the texture of her skin and the tightness of her muscles and the unique shape of her.

"You don't know how much I've wanted to touch you like this. You have absolutely the most beautiful legs I have ever seen."

She smiled. It was the same smile she smiled the first day I saw her. But then a shadow crossed her face.

"Philip, do you think I might be one of those women like in the book ... you know ... frigid?"

"Karen, I can almost guarantee you you're not frigid. What makes you think so?"

"Because I never ... I've never ... I don't think I know what an orgasm feels like."

No! Impossible! She was hot. She had calmed down a little, but I knew it would only take a few strokes on her pussy and she would be writhing on the bed again. She was certainly more sensitive than most women I'd touched. It was unforgivable if she had never climaxed.

"Well, we will definitely have to do something about that."

"Can we? Are you sure?" Tears were welling up in her soft brown eyes.

I stroked my finger the length of her pussy, parting her lips as I went, and carrying the nectar of her sex up to bathe her clitoris.

"Oh! Philip!"

Leaning forward, I sucked her entire pussy into my mouth and caressed it lightly with my tongue. Her hips spasmed, heaving her pussy harder against me. Her knees came up and her delectable thighs pressed against my ears.