Perfect Strangers

Part 2

When you start to live outside yourself, it’s all dangerous.

Ernest Hemingway

I come awake gradually, floating up into consciousness as if on a whisper-soft cloud. When I open my eyes, I’m lying on my back in bed, nude but covered with a sheet. It’s early in the morning. Pearl gray light sifts through the curtains, brightening the edges of the room.

I’m alone.

I take a moment to simply breathe and marvel at this shiny new feeling of happiness.

James carried me to bed last night. Picked me up in his arms from the sofa and carried me into the bedroom as easily as if I were a child. He laid me down on the sheets, then curled up behind me, curving our bodies together and tightening his arm around my waist, nuzzling his nose into my hair. I fell asleep listening to the sound of his even breathing.

But now I’m awake, and there’s a book on the pillow beside me, lying open with a yellow sticky note stuck to one of the pages.

I sit up, pick up the book, and look at the note. In neat handwriting, it reads, “How can you say this is the worst fake biblical prose? This is the best fake biblical prose ever.”

The book is For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Hemingway. James must have retrieved it from Estelle’s library.

The note is stuck directly under the line I ridiculed during dinner: “Now, feel. I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other. And feel now. Thou hast no heart but mine.”

My world must have tilted on its axis, because I have to admit, at the moment those words look pretty damn good.

Then I stop and wonder how long it must’ve taken James to find this particular book in Estelle’s large and disorganized library. And, upon discovering it, how long it took him to hunt down that exact quote. Or did he know what page it was on by heart?

“Oh no,” I say aloud, alarmed. “Is Hemingway his favorite writer?”

We’re going to have to have a serious discussion about this. I don’t know if I can continue to fool around with a man whose favorite author once famously said that the only real sports were mountain climbing, bull fighting, and car racing.

I mean, come on. Macho much?

Personally, I think he was overcompensating for some deep-seated feelings of inferiority, but that’s just me.

Out of nowhere, a flash of inspiration hits. Fully formed, a scene in Technicolor arrives in my mind’s eye. It’s as clear as a picture, sudden as a slap, and accompanied by a burning rush of adrenaline.

I leap from bed and run naked into the library, where I throw myself down into the chair in front of the big roll top desk, snatch the pencil up from where I abandoned it in my last attempt to write, and begin to scribble furiously on the yellow lined legal pad of paper.

I don’t stop until three hours later, when my right hand begins to cramp.

Drained and amazed, I lean back in the chair and flip back through the pages I’ve written.

It’s rare that inspiration hits me like that, in one fell swoop, the characters, dialogue, and scene so detailed. Normally, writing is a grueling process, whole manuscripts completed page by painful page as I beat my natural self-doubt and laziness into submission. But this…

This is what writers call “flow,” a unicorn state of total immersion where time loses all meaning and words pour out like water from a faucet with no more effort than it takes to blink.

The muffled sound of a phone ringing is what finally makes me rise from the chair.

I pad into the living room, the parquet cool and smooth under my bare feet. Finding my handbag on the floor of the foyer, I retrieve my cell phone from it and smile when I see the number on the screen.

“Girlfriend,” I say after answering, “I hope you’re sitting down, because what I’m about to tell you will pull the rug right out from under your feet.”

Kelly shouts, “Oh my God! Did you do sex with James?”

She’s always using verbs in unique ways like that: “do” sex instead of “have” sex. Her husband finds it irritating, but I think it’s cute.

I say coyly, “I don’t know…what’s your definition of sex?”

“When the outie enters the innie! Duh!”

I roll my eyes, headed back to the bedroom to find something to wear. “Genitals aren’t belly buttons, you weirdo, but by that definition, no. We didn’t have sex.”Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

She sounds confused. “Did anything of his enter anything of yours?”

“Yup.”

A thrilled gasp, then: “Omigod, tell me quick.” She pauses. “Unless there are toes involved. I don’t want to hear anything about toe sex. That’s just nasty.”

Crinkling my nose, I say, “Toe sex? Is that even a thing?”

“Babe, you have no idea. Remember how I said I was gonna Google sex stuff for you? Well, I did. And there’s a whole world out there of kinkiness I had no idea existed. Did you know some people get off by having stinging insects crawl all over them? That would just make me shit myself, not come.”

I can’t help but start to laugh. “I told you to stay off Google, you nut!”

“And you were right. After some of the pictures I saw, I’m gonna need extensive psychotherapy.”

I grab my robe off the hook on the back of the bathroom door and shrug into it, switching the phone from one ear to the other. When my stomach emits a loud rumble, I head into the kitchen to hunt for something to eat.

“I promise you there were no insects or toes involved, okay?”

“Okay. I’m sitting now, so go ahead and tell me what happened. And don’t skip any of the juicy parts. I’m living vicariously through you over here.”

I open the fridge and peer into it. “Well, for starters, he spanked my pussy until I came so hard I cried.”

I hear a loud thud and wonder if Kelly fell out of her chair.

She shouts, “Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“Hand to God, girlfriend.”

“You went straight from not liking any positions other than the missionary to getting your coochie spanked? And calling your coochie your pussy? What the hell has this man done to you? One date and suddenly you’re Rebecca De Mornay in Risky Business?”

I say drily, “Enough with the pearl clutching, grandma. May I point out, you just used the word ‘fuck’ not even ten seconds ago? So I’m not the only potty mouth in this conversation. And you’re seriously dating yourself with that movie reference.”

She says prissily, “Well, excuse me for not knowing any more recent movies about hookers.”

I grab a can of soda, pop the top, and guzzle half of it in one go. “I can’t even be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? Or what was that other movie, the one with Nicholas Cage where he’s an alcoholic and that pretty blonde hooker falls in love with him?”

“Leaving Las Vegas!” Kelly hollers. “And why the hell are we talking about hookers?”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought it up.” I chug the rest of the can of soda, stifling a burp.

Some muttering and annoyed grumbling comes over the line, then Kelly says, “If you don’t tell me in extreme detail what happened last night from start to finish, I’m firing you as my best friend.”

She sounds serious, so after a short pause to gather my thoughts, I tell her everything.

When I’m done, thundering silence echoes over the phone.

“Hello?”

“Still here,” Kelly says faintly.

“So? What do you think?”

“What do I think? What do I think? I think I would shove my own mother down a flight of stairs to spend ten minutes alone in a room with this stud of yours. Jiminy Cricket, Olivia. Talk about intense.”

I close the fridge door and wander out of the kitchen into the living room, distracted from my hunger by memories of last night. Memories of James’s beautiful face and all the emotion shining in his eyes. “I know,” I say softly. “It’s pretty surreal.”

“Surreal is right!” She cackles, sounding on the verge of hysteria. “He never took off his pants! How is that even possible for a man? He’s got a naked woman orgasming in his lap and he keeps his pants on? Talk about superhuman willpower! Mike rips off all his clothes and jumps me if I even breathe in his direction.”

I muse over that for a moment. “Maybe his penis is pierced and he knows I’d faint if I saw that, so he’s trying to ease me into it one orgasm at a time.”

Kelly snorts. “Well, you ride that fat pierced anaconda, sister, and make sure you take good notes when you do, because from now on, I’m gonna be living for my daily episodes of Olivia Gets Her Coochie Spanked, starring Handsome James the Dirty Talking Artist.”

I dissolve into laughter. “You’re deranged.”

Her voice turns dry. “Twenty years of marriage to a man who thinks foreplay is standing at the edge of the bed and sticking his limp wang in my face when I’m about to fall asleep would make any woman deranged.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah, don’t get me started. But listen.”

The change in her tone has me worried. “What?”

“Just…be careful. I know you set ground rules and you’ve both agreed it’s not gonna get personal, but sex has a way of complicating things. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

A faint warning bell goes off in the back of my mind, the same urgent alarm I heard last night when I was falling apart in James’s arms. I push it aside.

“Don’t worry. My eyes are wide open. I actually think this is going to be good for me. Clear out the cobwebs, so to speak. I woke up this morning and wrote five chapters of a new book.”

Kelly’s excited whoop is ear-piercing. “That’s amazing!”

I grin. “I know. I’m feeling really good about it, too. It’s much different from my usual work, but I think it could be some of my best.”

“Holy shit, Olivia, I’m so happy for you! This is exactly why you went to Paris in the first place! Who knew all you needed was some legendary dick to get your brain kick-started?”

Her excitement is infectious, and I laugh again. “Technically, I haven’t had his legendary dick yet, just a legendary orgasm.”

“Jesus, think what will happen when you have intercourse with this guy! You could end up writing the next great American novel. If you win the Pulitzer, you’ll have to go on stage and give all the credit to your vacation hookup’s lovely penis.”

I picture myself in an evening gown on stage in a crowded amphitheater, accepting an award from a dapper gentleman in a tuxedo, then turning to the podium to give a heartfelt speech of gratitude to James’s wonderfully inspiring genitals while the audience looks on with their mouths hanging open.

The imagery is interrupted when another call rings through. When I glance at the screen, I see that it’s James.

“Kell, Mr. Legendary Dick is calling. Can I call you back?”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And don’t forget—take good notes.”

She ends the call, leaving me smiling. I click over to James.

“Hello?”

“You’re smiling,” he says, his tone warm.

I turn and look out the living room windows. “How did you know that? Are you looking at me through binoculars right now?”

“I can hear it in your voice.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes, really. Did you know you look like an angel when you’re asleep?”

Heat creeps into my cheeks. I wander over to the sofa and sit down, smoothing my hand over the spot on the middle cushion where James held me in his lap. “I don’t believe anyone has made that observation before, no.”

“Well, you do. A pornographic angel, if there is such a thing. I was worried I’d have to seek medical attention today because my dick stayed hard the entire night.”

I whisper, “I noticed that.”

After a beat, he whispers gruffly back, “You’re so fucking beautiful. Your skin makes me want to cry.”

I grin, blushing furiously. “I know that’s a line from a song, Romeo.”

“Damn. You caught me. My script writers are on break. Bonus points for effort, though?”

“You don’t sound the least bit sorry, so no bonus points.”

“Hmm. What if I told you I’m hard right now just from hearing your voice?”

“Less romantic, but more realistic. I’ll give you one point.”

His voice turns teasing. “Oh, it’s romance you want, is it? And here I thought you were only after me for my body.”

“Your incredible body, yes, I’m sorry to say that’s all I’m interested in. By the way, I wanted to ask you about something.”

“What?”

“That tattoo on your shoulder. It was too dark last night for me to read it. What does it say?”

His hesitation is a sudden crackle of tension over the line. “Duris dura fraguntur.”

It’s Latin, I know that much. I also know by the change in his voice that I’ve stepped into dangerous territory, but I can’t help but step farther. My curiosity is too strong. “What does it mean?”

He answers in a low voice. “Hard things are broken by hard things.”

I think of the simple italic text tattooed onto the rounded muscle of his shoulder. Beneath it were two mysterious rows of short black lines, like a bar code.

An eerie uneasiness creeps over me, as if someone has stepped over my grave.

“Oh.”

We sit in awkward silence, until he says, “I noticed you don’t have any tattoos.”

It’s as elegant a segue as possible, considering the circumstances, so I go with it. “I’m not a big fan of needles.”

His voice warms. “That’s right. You said you’re not into pain.”

“Of any kind. I’m a big baby when it comes to physical pain. A hangnail can send me into a crying fit.”

“So can an orgasm.”

I know he’s only teasing because his tone is strokingly soft, but still I’m embarrassed. My ears start to burn.

He guesses why I’m silent. “Don’t be embarrassed. I hope to make you cry as often as possible from now until September.”

Picturing myself weeping every time he touches me makes me nervous. Dropping my head into my hand, I groan. “I have a bad feeling I’m going to need a lot of tissues.”

He chuckles. “We’ll go to one of those big box stores, get stocked up.”

“Judging by how wound up you get me, we’ll have to stock up on smelling salts, too. I’m liable to collapse into a heap every time I see you.”

“Do you think they carry defibrillators? Because I’ll probably need one of those at some point. Sooner rather than later, considering what it did to my heart when I watched you come.” His voice goes rough. “I can’t wait to put my mouth on you again. I had dreams about how sweet you taste. When I woke up, my dick was throbbing.”

His voice is so hot, I start to sweat. He’s not the only one who might need a defibrillator.

I say faintly, “Things are starting to throb over here, too.”

He makes that growling wolf noise that I find so weirdly thrilling. “Is your pussy getting wet, Olivia?”

He loves that word: pussy. I admit, it’s never been a favorite of mine, but coming from his mouth, the way he says it with so much masculine need, it has recently gained in stature.

“Yes. When can I see you? I’d like to reciprocate for that incredible orgasm you gave me last night.”

His sharp intake of breath tells me the need in my voice affects him the same way the need in his voice affects me.

“I have to go to Germany for a few days, but I’ll be back on Friday. Dinner?”

“Definitely.” I’m proud of myself for not asking what’s in Germany, because this whole not-getting-personal thing was my idea, after all.

“Good. I’ll pick you up at five.”

“Seems a little early for dinner.”

“There’s somewhere I want to take you first.”

“Ooh, a mystery. I like it.”

“And Olivia?”

“Yes?”

“Wear a dress.”

He hangs up, leaving me with shaky hands, a pulse going gangbusters, and my imagination running wild with every possible scenario of why he’d want me to wear a dress.

Another flash of inspiration has me sprinting back to the library and the yellow pad of lined legal paper.

I don’t get up from the desk again until it’s dark.