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Chapter 11
We’d compromised on an Italian place on Taylor. I accidentally got off the El at the wrong stop, and the taxi driver, though he spoke little English, was loudly annoyed that I only needed to go half a mile. I gave him a dollar tip, which seemed to satisfy him.
My heart leaped when I saw Craig waiting outside the restaurant. My reaction surprised me. Until that moment, I hadn’t cared whether I ate lunch alone, or with him. I was surprised again when he took me by the waist and kissed me. But I didn’t kiss him back.
“You’re embarrassing me.”
“No one’s here that knows you. Anyway, I’m happy to see you.” He held the door for me and let the waiter take us through to the back, where he apparently had a table reserved. It was well away from other tables. A small loaf of bread and serrated knife waited on a wooden cutting board. As the waiter held my chair, I held my hand over the bread, and felt the rising warmth.
“I thought we were only meeting for coffee,” I said.
“That, plus anything else you want. You can’t sit down in here without them bringing you the fresh bread. Very Italian, this place.” He picked up the slender bottle of oil and held it out to me.
“What’s that for?”
“Olive oil. For the bread.” His mouth formed an ‘O’ of understanding. “This is how they do things in Italy. Or at least in Italian restaurants.” He poured a pool of oil into a little plate. He tore a small piece from the loaf with his fingers, dipped it in the oil, and held it to my lips.
“Hmm. Tastes good,” I said, chewing the bread slowly. I’d cooked with olive oil before, but I’d never thought of having it with bread.
When I finished, he had another shred of warm bread ready, wet with oil. I remembered my resolve to be cool toward him. I’d vowed not to let myself be drawn into his vortex. But now I had an itch between my legs, and he was the one who knew best how to scratch it. This time, when I took gaziantep rus escort the bread into my mouth, I reached with my tongue and licked his fingertips as I had the week before. I looked into his eyes and gave him my most seductive smile.
The Italian coffee came, a small amount in the bottom of a cup, looking dark and ominous. The waiter set a pitcher of hot milk beside the cups.
“It can be bitter,” said Craig. “Some of us Americans like to add milk.” He added some to his own coffee. “Take a sip, and if it’s too bitter, add some milk.”
“I guess you’ve spent some time in Italy?” I sipped, made a face, and filled the cup with steaming milk.
He smiled and shook his head. “Afraid not. Everything I know about Italy, I learned right here on Taylor Street.”
He ordered from the menu in something even I knew was very bad Italian. The waiter rolled his eyes and left.
“Not to rush things,” I said, “but you had something to tell me about my scholarship.”
“In a way.” He stared for several seconds at a poster of an Italian village. “You know that the scholarship doesn’t cover living expenses, right?”
I nodded. “Tuition and books is more than I dared hope for. That’s why I have to keep working at Bernie’s.”
He tried to speak, choked, and tried again. “Would you come live with me?” His face had turned a bright red.
The bottom fell out of my stomach, and I felt a little pale. I wasn’t prepared for this. “But we’ve only dated a couple of times. Isn’t it too soon?”
“Can’t you tell already we’d get on well together?”
“I’ve got to think about it.”
He stared down at the shreds of bread remaining on the cutting board. “I know you saw my picture collection,” he murmured.
I wanted to tell him how shocked I’d been, but nothing would come out.
He took my hand. I wanted to pull away, but he gripped it tightly. “Before you say anything, I want you to listen to me. Please.”
I looked in his eyes. They were pleading and a little wet. I felt that tingle in my pussy again.
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve been attracted to strong women. Independent women. Even selfish women. All through my teenage years, I wanted a girlfriend who would take charge and make me do things for her. Work to support her, cook her meals, clean her house, have sex the way she wanted. When I thought I was looking for a wife, I was really looking for a mistress, someone who would make me her slave. I wanted to spend my life worshiping a special woman, taking care of her, pleasing her any way I can. Finally, I found a woman I thought would be like that, and we married…”
After a long pause, I suggested, “…and she wasn’t like that?”
He shook his head, still staring at the bread. “She wasn’t. Sex ended the instant we were married. She had no interest. She didn’t want children. She was as selfish as I’d imagined, but I realized too late that she didn’t love me at all, never had. Eventually we divorced. She took everything, but it wasn’t much. She’d found someone who could give her the things she wanted, and she remarried not long after.”
“What did you do after that?”
He rested his forehead on his clasped hands. “Tried to bury myself. Went back and finished grad school. Got a job and got involved in my work.”
“But your fantasies never went away?”
“No. And when they got too strong, I got out my dirty picture collection and…” He paused.
I lowered my voice. “…and you took care of business.”
He was still looking down, but he nodded. “It sounds so much worse when you say it. But at least I kept on looking for the right woman. I can’t tell you how many I’ve asked out. Only a handful accepted, and all of them ran like scorched rabbits when they discovered my secret.”
I reached out and took his hand from his forehead and forced it to the tabletop, where I held it in a tight grip.
“And then you found me.”
“You were everything I’d daydreamed—I still daydream—about. I think about you all the time. And you didn’t run when I…well, when we did what we did after the baseball game, I had real hope.”
“I think I was too surprised to bolt,” I confessed. “But I have to say, my first impulse was to run. I’ve altered my opinion a little since then.” I smiled broadly.
He looked up, just in time to catch my smile. “And now?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. Give me a couple of days.”
He slipped his free hand in his pocket. “I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s the apartment key you forgot to take yesterday. If you send it back, that will be one answer. If you let yourself in and stay, that’s the other answer. You won’t even have to look me in the eye. I don’t want you to feel pressured in any way.”
The newly-cut key lay on the white, starched tablecloth, a magical silver amulet that could take me to another life. A life much better, or perhaps worse, than my present one.
“There’s a third choice,” I said. “We could just keep on dating.”
“If that’s what you want, I’d live with it.”
“But if I move in, there are two conditions.”
He lowered his eyes. “Which are…?”
Two women at a nearby table were watching us curiously, so I leaned forward to whisper. “The pornography has got to go. And I don’t want you playing with yourself anymore, beginning right now. If I move in, that will be my job. Understand?”
He nodded eagerly. Apparently, he’d expected much harsher terms, or no terms at all.
I still gripped his hand with mine. He covered my hand with his other, and said, “I’m so happy.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“But for the first time in nine years, I have real hope. Until you decide, I can keep on dreaming about you. You’ve given me that much.”
There was that tingle between my legs again. The waiter cleared his throat. He held our two plates of pasta. But my appetite had flown off to the top of a tree, and refused to come down.
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