The next day, I spent half my salaried workday debating whether to cancel with a bad excuse or face meeting him for coffee. He was right that we needed to talk. I just wasn’t confident that I could make it through any kind of discussion or a single cup of coffee without lusting after him and touching him. I knew after the way it had felt when he touched just the strap of my bag, the brief pressure of his hand, that I would react in some over-the-top way to his touch. It felt loaded with promise and threat. Everything about him from his strong silent type demeanor to his wicked smile told me that he could deliver some pretty serious orgasms. If his attitude and the way he walked weren’t false advertising, this was a man who could leave me weak with satisfaction.
By the time I was done with work and put in a half-hearted half hour of yoga, my knee was jittering every time I tried to sit down. I couldn’t wait. I was nervous and excited. I felt like a kid, unable to contain myself. After yoga I put my work clothes back on. No showering and dressing cute. No fresh lipstick. I just brushed my hair and went to meet him, deliberately not treating it as a date. It was a quick cup of coffee. I was a professional and he needed help. Hopefully I could use the coffee meeting to encourage him to seek another therapist so that I didn’t have to keep seeing him. Like, ever.
Never mind that he was my best friend’s brother-in-law. I’d have to see him anytime there was a dinner or a birthday or a holiday because Danny, adorable, chubby Danny, was my godson. So there I’d be, smiling with my birthday gift in hand, silently eating my heart out over his hot uncle. I groaned at the thought of all those future awkward meetings. But it was better than letting my hormones get the better of me. That way lay unemployment, a destroyed reputation, and nothing to look forward to at all.
Maybe he wouldn’t show up. Maybe I could just turn around and walk out or fake an emergency call from a friend. Or say I had to go to the ER to help a patient. Though he already, unnervingly, seemed to be able to read me fairly well. He might know I was lying. Although it might be better to lie and leave than to stay and face him. I knew that my nightly fantasies would leave traces on my face. I would blush, avoid his eyes, find myself staring at his hands and wishing he’d put them on me, in me. It was so tacky—I’d fantasized about his body, and there was no way to act normal in spite of it. I should never have allowed the thought to cross my mind.
I walked into the diner and found him sitting at the counter. Not at a booth for privacy, but right up front and in view of the door. It seemed open and above-board. Not something I needed to be embarrassed about. So why did I feel like I needed dark glasses and a trench coat?
I was meeting a friend of a friend, Maggie’s brother-in-law. It was nothing. I tried to convince myself as I sat down beside him and ordered coffee. Never mind that the heat coming off him felt headier than the bittersweet steam rising off my coffee cup. I wanted to dip my head, lean my forehead against his shoulder for a second, both to breathe him in and for comfort. Because I felt that close to him, like we had been friends for years, and I could just go to him, lean my head on him and he’d know why I was tired or frustrated. He might put an arm around me. God, I wished he would.
“Hi,” I said instead. Hi seemed so completely inadequate.
He sat there on the shiny vinyl stool, big shoulders hunched as he held the thick china coffee cup that looked like a toy in his huge hand. Every part of me itched to get closer to him, to be engulfed in that embrace, pressed against that chest, held and coddled by a man so much bigger than me. It was strange and unfair how the sight of him drinking coffee could be so damn sexy.
“It’s kind of quiet in here,” he said. “I’m surprised.”
“It’s early yet. At suppertime, it’ll be crowded,” I said.
“Want some pie?” he asked.
“No thanks,” I said.
“I know it’s not even dessert time yet, but this therapist challenged me to try adding one delicious taste to my day. So I thought I’d start here.”
I smiled, bit my lip, thinking it was such a cute way to flirt, quoting me back to myself, following my advice to the letter.
Pie was a good way to start though. Maybe he ate like a messy pig, maybe he was a noisy chewer. That would turn me right off. Put an end to those pesky dreams. So I shrugged, and he ordered. I talked about the activities we’d done in the latest session and waited on his food.
9
Tyler
I took a bite of apple pie. It had looked golden, perfect, studded with cinnamon. But it tasted like sawdust in my mouth. I drank some water to wash it down.
“Is it okay?” she asked. I turned to look at her, ready to tell her it was great when she met my eyes. I could lie to her.
“No. I couldn’t taste a thing,” I said.
“May I?” she said, taking the fork. I nodded.
She cut a small bite of the pie, tasted it and nodded, “That’s really good pie. I hate for you to miss it. Have you tried with your eyes closed?”
“I don’t like to shut my eyes,” I admitted.
“What if I watch the door for you? I’m serious. I’m not making light of this being hard for you, Tyler. Can you trust me for, let’s say, twenty seconds? Close your eyes, take a bite, concentrate on it.”
“I need to cut the bite first,” I said, hesitant.
“I said you have to trust me. I’ll feed you,” she said. And suddenly shutting my eyes shifted from problematic to erotic in those three words.
“Is that unorthodox, too?” I said.
“We’re off the clock,” she said brashly. “I don’t make a practice of feeding patients but consider it an experiment. If you shut out other senses it may help you focus on the flavor.”
“Fine,” I said, making a show of not wanting to cooperate when really, I wanted her to feed me more than I ever thought I could want something like that.
I watched her cut a tiny bite with the edge of her fork. She scooped it up, my eyes trained on her hand. She lifted the fork toward my mouth.
“Now close your eyes,” she said, her voice with a soft lilt to it.
I let my eyes drop shut, parted my lips. As she touched the fork to my lip, my hand shot out, my fingers circling her wrist. I opened my eyes, took in her startled expression. I removed the fork from her fingers, put it down on the plate. Then I turned and kissed the inside of her wrist, my mouth on her sensitive flesh.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her other hand grabbing my shoulder to hold on, not to push me away.
I lowered her wrist from my lips and met her eyes.
“Oh God, you can’t do that,” she said, her voice barely above a breath. “Why didn’t you eat the pie?”
“Why are you still gripping my shoulder?” I countered.
Her eyes skated to her fingers that had crumpled the fabric of my t-shirt as she held on to me. She loosened her hold on me, and I shook my head.
“I’m not complaining. I liked it,” I said.
“I can’t do that. This. This thing. It’s not okay,” she said, sounding more miserable than anything else. She let go of me, hands folded on the counter.
“You realize that when I felt what I felt. When I had sexual interest for the first time in over a year, you know it was you,” I said, my voice raw, not flirtatious, just laid bare.