Vanilla

  I gave up to desire, rocking with it. Harder. Faster. The pounding of the dildo against me wasn’t quite on spot enough to get me off, but I kept going, and teasing pleasure edged me closer and closer until I was lost in it. No longer in control myself. Letting my orgasm steal away my reason.

  Fuck, how good it was. Over and over, thrusting, my hands on his bent knees, occasionally reaching to stroke his cock from base to head. He cried out and shook when I did that, but a nice, firm grip on the base of his cock kept him from ejaculating. I wasn’t done yet—I hadn’t believed I’d come from this, but I was so close now, so fucking close, I wasn’t about to stop.

  “Beg me to let you come,” I ordered in a low voice.

  His gaze met mine and locked. “Please, Goddess, please fuck me harder and make me...oh...”

  I shuddered with my own climax, my thrusts ragged. I didn’t mean to keep stroking his cock, but caught up in my own pleasure, I forgot to tease and deny him his. At the searing wet spurt of him covering my hand, I came. He jetted all over his chest and my hand, once hitting his face, and we both tangled into that final roller coaster plunge of simultaneous orgasm where nobody knows what the hell is being shouted out of their mouths or what parts are whose because everything has become a last thirty seconds of pumping, grinding, clenching, pulsing oblivion.

  There was silence.

  Slowly now, gently, I withdrew and pulled free the ribbons at my hips that held the harness in place. I wriggled out of it and fell onto the bed next to Esteban, who hadn’t moved, not even to wipe his cheek. I did it for him, tenderly, with the edge of the pillowcase, though the mess on his belly I left for the moment. I curled next to him, my lips pressed to his shoulder. I tasted the salt of his sweat and breathed in his scent.

  “Wow,” Esteban said after a while.

  I’d started to fall asleep. I smiled against his skin. He shifted to have me settle on his chest, and his hand stroked, stroked over my hair. He kissed my forehead.

  “Wow,” he said again.

  I shifted to look at him. He smiled at me, though his eyes were more serious. He let a finger trace my brows, the line of my nose. Over my lips.

  “I want to see you again, soon,” he said then added, “May I?”

  I thought about it. “Next Friday?”

  Esteban sighed happily and pulled me close. “Yes. Next Friday.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes. I pushed up on my elbows to look at him. “What are you thinking?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing isn’t an answer,” I told him.

  He opened his mouth but then closed it. “Nothing I want to say out loud. Words might break what I am thinking.”

  I knew the feeling. I didn’t press him. There were things I’d been thinking that were best kept inside, too.

  18

  I didn’t recognize the number that came up on my cell phone, which was why I let it go to voice mail and then promptly forgot about it until after I came back from lunch and checked my phone to see if Esteban had messaged me. I was still going over our amazing night together, over and over, unable to keep myself from grinning when I thought of it. We’d seen each other for three Fridays in a row, and I was planning on this Friday, too. Alex had tried to call me out about it, but I wasn’t saying a word.

  “Hey, um, Elise. This is Niall. Black,” he added as though I knew half a dozen men named Niall. “I was wondering if you’d want to go check out a movie at the Allen Theater with me. It’s supposed to be really good.”

  He named an indie movie that had been getting rave reviews. It wasn’t showing in any of the multiplexes, though I figured if it really took off, some big distributor would eventually snatch it up. I had, however, been thinking about going to see it, probably alone, since there wasn’t anyone I knew who was into that sort of thing.

  “Hey.” Alex stuck his head around my office door. That was all. Just his head.

  I paused in listening to the voice mail. “Um...yeah? What?”

  “What are you doing tonight?”

  I gave him a wary, narrow-eyed look. “Why?”

  “It wounds me,” Alex said, “that you don’t trust me. Not that I blame you. I’m fucking unreliable as fuck.”

  I had to laugh at that and shake my head. “Have I told you lately how lucky I am to work in a place where reliability is rated in terms of fuck? And for fuck’s sake, come all the way into my office. Stop hovering...” I stopped when he came through. “What the...”

  Alex was not wearing pants. I blinked and blinked again at the sight of him, shirttails hanging down over what looked like a pair of soft pink women’s boy-cut panties. Then I covered my face.

  “What the hell!”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I spilled coffee.”

  He’d been wearing white pants earlier, a bold fashion move that I’d thought couldn’t be topped...until I saw the pink underwear. Embarrassed laughter choked me, and heat flooded my cheeks, because the last thing in the world I wanted was to get a crush on my married partner. “Good Lord, Alex.”

  “Hey, they’re super comfortable.”

  “I don’t disagree with you. I just don’t need to see you in your wife’s panties.” I swiveled in my chair to avoid looking at him. Sweet Baby Elvis in a pompadour, do I love boys in lingerie.

  Alex snorted. “They’re not hers. They’re mine. Why should women get all the cool underpants?”

  “Aghhh!”

  “Okay, hold on.”

  I heard shuffling as he ducked outside the door, then came back inside a minute or so later with a skirt made out of sheets of paper stapled together, clinging to him in a way that was definitely not going to keep him covered if he did more than stand very, very still. But it was an improvement over him flashing his junk at me, and so I turned to face him. I shook my head.

  “Don’t judge,” he said. “You’re the one who insisted I come inside.”

  “Fair enough. Now that we’ve lost half an hour of work time, what is it that you wanted?”

  “I just wanted to know if you wanted to come out with me and Olivia tonight. Dinner. Show. We have extra tickets to see the Chinese Acrobats at the Hershey Theater.”

  I twisted in my chair, considering it. “Sounds fun.”

  “Nice. We have two tickets. Maybe you can invite your...” He paused to give me a look. “Your lover?”

  “No.” I shook my head. I’d already asked Esteban to come out with me once at the last minute and been turned down. It wasn’t a trend I wanted to start. “But I might be able to scare up another date.”

  He pretended to stagger. “God. You’re killing me. You have some other guy, too?”

  “It’s the life of a crazy single lady, yeah. I know. To an old married guy like yourself, it must be shocking. Two men at the same time!” I grabbed my pearls. The fact they were fake and from a thrift shop didn’t keep them from being perfectly clutchable.

  Something flickered across his expression, and his smile slipped a little bit. “Oh, the horror.”

  “Hmm,” I said thoughtfully. “It kind of sounds awesome to me.”

  “Depends on the men, I guess,” Alex said. “So, who’s the other guy if he’s not your lovah?”

  “Oh, this other guy I met who works with my brother. He came to the gallery show, and then we hung out a little, after. He just left me a voice mail asking me to the movies.”

  “See if he’ll come along to the show, instead. You’re down for a double date?”

  “Let me call him, see what he thinks, okay? Maybe he didn’t even mean tonight.”

  “If he’s calling you right now for a date tonight,” Alex said, “you should just say no anyway, on principle.”

  “There are so many reasons why I like you. You know that?”

  He buffed his fingernails on his shirt front. “I am pretty fucking likable.”

  “Get out of here. Let me make this call in private. And get another pair of pants!” I waved him out and thumbed
Niall’s number on my phone screen. I had a moment’s panicky anticipation before he answered, but the second I heard his voice, it went away. “Hi, it’s Elise. I got your message.”

  “Elise, hi.” He sounded pleased. “How are you?”

  We passed the social civilities back and forth, that silliness that always happens when both people are really thinking about the real reason for the call. I wasn’t going to bring it up, though. I’d called him back; he could be the one to ask me out. Call me old-fashioned.

  “So,” Niall said, “would you like to see that movie with me?”

  “I would. It sounds great. When were you thinking?”

  “Friday night? We could have dinner and hit the later show, if you wanted.”

  I smiled into the phone. “I have plans on Friday, but maybe Saturday?”

  “Sure, that would work. Saturday it is.” He sounded like he was smiling, too.

  We chatted awhile longer about work, the weather. The construction downtown. Alex stuck his head around the doorway again, making gestures until I excused myself and muted the call.

  “You said if he wanted to go out tonight that I should say no!”

  “That’s only if he asked you,” Alex said. “You asking him is totally okay.”

  “You...that’s...” I narrowed my eyes. He shrugged. I unmuted the call. “Hi. Niall. This is really last minute, but would you have any interest in grabbing some dinner and seeing the Chinese Acrobats tonight at the Hershey Theater? My business partner and his wife have extra tickets.”

  “Oh, wow. I can’t make dinner,” Niall said, and my heart plunged harder than I’d expected it to. “But what time’s the show? I could probably do that, yeah.”

  I got the details and exchanged them, agreeing to meet him at the theater. I disconnected. My phone buzzed with texts from William and some from Jill that I read and rolled my eyes over. I sat back in my chair and waited for Alex to crow about my call.

  He didn’t. He had, however, put his pants back on. They were damp in the front, and probably permanently coffee stained. “You can still come to dinner with us.”

  “Can’t. I just got a text that I need to pick up my nephew from Hebrew school and take him home, and another from my sister telling me she and my mother need to talk to me about my sister-in-law, and let me tell you, that’s not going to go the way they hope it will.” I frowned, dreading returning that phone call.

  “Family sucks,” Alex said sincerely.

  “No. Kidding.”

  We agreed I’d meet him and Olivia at the theater, and he ducked out of my office. I texted William to remind him that I’d be there to get him at six-thirty, and I texted my mother to tell her that she and Jill needed to let Susan decide what kind of fucking napkins to have at the Bar Mitzvah party, though I didn’t say fucking, not to my mother. I might be disrespectful, disreputable and unnatural, according to her, but even I couldn’t bring myself to say the F word to her.

  The texts were flying back and forth while I waited for William in the parking lot. My mother didn’t quite grasp the group texting option, so a lot of what she was replying had to be forwarded by Jill, until finally, disgusted, I gave up and called my sister directly. She was already on a tear, but I stopped her by quietly repeating her name over and over again until finally, she stopped.

  “What?”

  “This is not your party.”

  “Well, I’ve just planned dozens of events, that’s all. Forgive me if I happen to know a little something about it.” My mom could be counted on, at least sometimes, to back the fuck down. Jill was a pit bull.

  “You’re getting all worked about paper napkins, okay? Why is this even a thing with you?”

  “I have a place,” Jill said. “Susan wants to order from some online place. Who knows about the shipping or the quality!”

  I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “Why do you even care?”

  She started up again, but all I said was “Jill, Jill, Jill” in a soft monotone until she screamed out “What!”

  If I laughed, she really would lose her shit, so I bit it back. But damn, making my sister crazy was fun. “Why do you even care?”

  “I just do,” she said.

  “If Susan wants to order her paper napkins embossed with baby butterfly wings and hand-crafted from regurgitated Mexican restaurant takeout menus filtered through a unicorn’s anus, Jill, then she’s going to do that. When are you and Mom going to get it? You don’t get to decide for everyone what they do, okay?”

  “She asked for advice,” Jill muttered.

  “You can give all the advice you want, but the way you act when someone doesn’t take it is the problem. You’re getting your blood pressure all out of whack over something people are going to wipe their mouths with. Maybe put boogers in.”

  “Why are you gross all the time?”

  Why are you such a raging bitch, I wanted to say, but didn’t. My sister had been on fire that way her entire life. Nothing I could say was going to change her. “Just...I’m not on your side on this one, okay? I’m not going to get involved with it, and no, I’m not going to have some kind of fucking ‘heart-to-heart’ with Susan to try and bully her into using your napkin place. Leave me out of it.”

  I hadn’t noticed William at the passenger-side door, which was locked, so I opened it. He slid inside, taking off his kippah and putting it in the front pocket of his backpack. He looked stressed.

  “Jill, I have to go, William just got in the car.”

  “Why are you picking up William?”

  “To be helpful,” I told her. “To do something genuinely helpful instead of...”

  I caught myself with a glance at my nephew, not wanting to have him overhear anything. Jill mumbled something stupid and mean that I ignored. I hung up.

  I turned to William. “You okay?”

  He shrugged, not looking at me. That wasn’t good. I didn’t know if I should press or not, so instead I turned the car toward what was becoming our Wednesday tradition, the Lucky Rabbit. After downing a double cheeseburger and a chocolate sundae, a meal that could only have been more nonkosher if it had been topped with shrimp and bacon, William let out a long, rattling belch.

  I laughed at him over my frosted mug of root beer. “Eight points, plus one for the vibrato. Feel better?”

  “Yeah.” Unexpectedly, William pointed at my wrist. “Is that because of this place?”

  I laughed. “Um, no.”

  “Dad said you guys worked here in the summers.”

  “Yeah, I did, but at the one closer to Grandma’s house.” I eyed the sign, then my tattoo. Both rabbits, but not the same. “No, this isn’t because of this place.”

  “What’s it for, then?”

  “I... It’s...” I hesitated.

  “Grandma says tattoos are bad decisions,” William said. “But I think they’re cool. I think when I get older I’m going to get one or two.”

  “Thanks, kid.” Bad decisions, indeed. I didn’t consider my ink a bad decision, just a reminder of how easy it was to make one.

  William sighed. I waited for him to talk, but he didn’t. I didn’t push it.

  “You ready to go home?”

  He shrugged again, finally looking me in the eye. “I’m going to mess everything up.”

  “What? At the service?”

  “Yeah.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re not. You’re going to be great. I told you not to worry, kid. You’ll get it.”

  “I don’t have enough time. I’m never going to learn it all. And the whole thing is making Mom and Dad fight.”

  I hesitated. “About you?”

  “About the whole thing. The party, all that stuff. Dad and Grandma and Aunt Jill and Mom are all arguing all the time. Nobody asks me what I want,” Willam said fiercely and stabbed a fork into the almost empty paper tray of fries. “Nobody bothers to find out what I want to have for food or what the stupid napkins should say!”

  “Have you told your mom and dad this
?” Susan, the mother of a single son, had always been a little prone to anxiety about anything regarding him, but my brother, I’d thought, was a little more even-keeled.

  “No.”

  “Want me to talk to them about it?” My stomach hurt a little already in advance at the thought of having to tell Susan anything remotely derogatory about her parenting skills, but for my nephew I was willing to do it. I’d had a lot more experience dealing with my mother and sister, but I could do that, too.

  “No. Mom will get more upset.” He looked up at me with my brother’s eyes, which were by extension my own.

  I wanted to hug this kid so tight, to squeeze the breath out of him. In a lot of ways, though I’d never dare say so to his mother, I thought of William as my own. The way things were looking, maybe the only one I’d ever have. The fact that all these adults in his life were supposed to be taking care of him and making this huge transition easier, not harder, made acid rise in my throat.

  “Your mom loves you, William. She doesn’t want this to be harder on you than it has to be. I mean...do you need some extra tutoring? Would that make you feel better about it? I know it would suck if you had to go for some extra hours, but if it makes you feel more confident about it, maybe you could meet with the rabbi another hour a week or something.”

  He looked at first hopeful then shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell you what. I want you to stop worrying about the party bullshit, okay?” I watched him grin at the curse word. Yeah, I knew how to connect with an almost thirteen-year-old boy, that was for sure. “You concentrate on your stuff. And if you really want something special at your party—”

  “I don’t want a baseball theme.”

  I studied him. “Okay. What kind of theme do you want?”