I jump and say, “Shit, Richard! You scared me.”
He gives me his standard-issue grin and then makes a sarcastic comment, something about my guilty conscience.
I shake my head, smiling. Then I stand and head for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, blocking me.
Our bodies touch and the contact gives me a little rush.
“To the copier,” I say, attempting to exit again.
He blocks me again and then pulls me back into my office, closing the door behind us.
“What’s the big idea?” I say, knowing exactly what his big idea is.
His face comes closer to mine. I tilt my head to the right, my preferred angle to kiss. At the same second, he tilts his head to the right. Our lips meet effortlessly, softly. Then more urgently. We swiftly become two movie stars, making out in a forbidden place. I am watching myself kiss Richard, aware of how good we must look. Richard is the sort of man who can make any woman look good.
He backs me up, over to my desk, where he lifts me up and puts me down with the exact right mix of passion and care. His hands slide under my bare thighs. I am glad I wore a skirt today. And—hallelujah! lacy, matching underwear. Sometimes things really do work out; I make a mental note to remember this small blessing the next time I’m complaining about bad luck, when, say, I am stuck in a middle seat on a flight between two oversized passengers.
Richard keeps kissing me, mostly on the lips, but also on my neck and collarbone. The man is an expert, and there’s really no doubt about where he got his experience. I think of Lydia in the art department and so many other women before me. Some he met at work, others from bars or restaurants or blind dates or the subway. But I don’t care about any of them. I don’t care if he’s seeing other women right now. I just want him to keep touching me, everywhere, right under these fluorescent lights.
“Will you come back to my place?” Richard breathes in my ear.
I nod and whisper, “Yeah,” as he continues to kiss my neck. My hands are on his back which feels stronger than I imagined. I decide that forty-eight is not very old. He presses harder against me. Not so old at all.
“Now?” he says.
“Uh-huh,” I say. “But you’ll need to stop kissing me first.”
There are a few more false stops before we finally disentangle ourselves and breathlessly formulate a plan: I am to go get a cab and wait for him while he picks up his things in his office. We kiss one more time. Then he opens my door. I consider it a victory when we are only spotted by Jimmy, the janitor on my floor, who nods hello. In truth, though, I really don’t care who knows about us. I am beginning to wear our relationship as a badge of honor. An outward emblem of my well-adjusted, “pick myself up by my bootstraps” mentality. I am no victim, no embittered divorcee. And Richard is proof of that.
I get a cab right away and wait for Richard. He hops in a moment later, swinging his briefcase in by his feet. We do not kiss in the cab, but we never stop touching. He tells me, more than once, that he can’t wait to get me home.
When we do get to his apartment, we head straight for his bedroom. I am glad he doesn’t ask me if I want something to drink. Because I don’t. I’m glad we don’t sit on the couch and talk. Because I just want to be in his bed, touching him. And within two minutes of the dead bolt being locked behind us, that’s exactly where we are, exactly what I am doing.
Everything about Richard is cool and smooth, his sheets, his music (Sam Cooke), even his choice of pets, an uppity Siamese cat named Rex who is disdainfully surveying us from his windowsill. There is only one awkward beat, the predictable one where Richard stops, looks at me, and says, “Do I need to get something?”
“Are you fine?” I ask, thinking of Lydia again and the disease that rhymes with her name.
“Oh, yeah. I’m completely fine,” Richard says, kissing the inside of my left thigh. “But are you on the pill?”
I breathe a yes.
“Of course you are,” he says. His comment jolts my mind back to Ben and babies, and I can’t help but feel a quick jab of longing. I tell myself that my ex-husband is likely doing the same thing with Tucker. Or someone like her. I tell myself to stay in the moment. I tell myself that I would so much rather be here with Richard than having a baby. It’s no contest. No contest at all.
Moments later, Richard and I are having sex.
“You’re so good,” he whispers to me at one point.
“You say that to all the girls,” I whisper back.
“No. I don’t,” he says. “I say only what I mean.”
I smile because I believe him. There is nothing gratuitous about Richard.