I didn't mention it earlier: Carl practiced law mostly in Charleston SC, one of the more romantic cities in the South, and it's also home to MUSC -- the Medical University of South Carolina. One of my research grants includes a provision requiring me to offer seminars and training sessions at other universities. About two months after the ‘Show and Tell” I just told you about in part 1, I was scheduled to spend several days at MUSC.
Women who travel for professional reasons know something that men who read these stories might not appreciate. Even in these more enlightened days, it's uncomfortable for some of us to go alone to a nice restaurant. We often have room service dinners or drive-by ones from McDonald's. I HATE sitting alone at a restaurant or a lounge in a hotel.
One of the seminars I was giving -- it was about over-medicating kids with ADD -- was open to the public and Carl noticed the announcement in a local Coming Events guide. Well, that is only partly true; he also had my name on the Google app that reports a finding whenever the name comes up online. He said he would be attending and asked if he could take me, as a visiting scholar, to dinner. He promised there would be no erotic presumptions even though we met on Lush.
My husband was all in favor of the idea; to him, it was another step down a dangerous path he and I had pillow talked about. And for me, it would save me from a room service dinner.
I agreed.
I’d be away for three days and two nights. My agenda had a busy afternoon that first day; the next day would be full of meetings and seminars with still more academic stuff the following morning before I returned home.
It’s a bit more than a five-hour drive to Charleston and I and got there in time for my afternoon seminars. So, that first evening, after a busy day of driving and seminars, I did what my husband insisted on (does this lady protest too much?) and drove to Trattoria Lucca, the little restaurant Carl suggested. No, I did not let him pick me up at my hotel; that would make it more like a date. I was still wearing my travel and on-campus ‘business casual' slacks, blouse and jacket. I in no way wanted to project myself as anything other than a visiting scholar. It was just a shared dinner, nothing more.
Yeah, right.
It was our first real-life meeting. Carl was an inch over six feet tall, lean, handsome in his way, and as charming in person as he was online. He had been divorced for three years and I am sure he was the target of every woman in the county! The dinner and the company were wonderful, and totally G-rated, as he promised. Carl did comment on their presentation of a Caesar salad though. “The one our chef makes at my club is much better,” he joked. It was supposed to be dinner between casual friends, professional peers, with each of us paying for our own, but Carl was a Southern gentleman and wouldn’t allow me to pay my share.
It was dark when we left the restaurant. He offered his arm as he walked me to my car. The Lexus sang its ‘I’m unlocked’ sound when I was beside it, and Carl -- not a surprise -- opened the door for me. I turned to thank him for a wonderful evening but somehow that turn toward him turned into an embrace. I felt a kiss on my cheek -- well, I air kissed his too -- but then our heads turned, and our lips met. That kiss became more than a simple goodbye kiss. Somehow the hug deepened and I felt his lips part; his tongue touched my lips.
Some kisses are questions, aren’t they? It could have been the long day, it could have been the wine, it could have been… but no excuses -- my lips opened too, answering his unspoken question. His hug became a caress and I was sure I felt him hardening, too.
“May I come back with you to your hotel? Or, come with me to my house?" He put words to the question his kiss asked. I shook my head no, reluctantly broke the hug, and got into my car. As he closed the door he said, "I will be attending that lecture that's open to the public that you’re giving tomorrow at lunchtime. And maybe I can take you to my club for its Caesar salad tomorrow evening."
It was a distracted drive back to the hotel. Calling home on a cell phone while driving is dangerous enough; talking when one’s emotions are all over the place makes it worse.
"I expected him to try to seduce you,' my husband told me, "and I hope you liked that he did."
I told him Carl would be at the public lecture and wanted to take me to his club in the evening. My husband said I should accept.
"But things may happen," I protested.
"If you're enjoying him, they should, honey," he said. "You have a permission slip from me. If the mood is right, let yourself go."
I was exhausted when I got to my hotel; just got some essentials unpacked, and undressed. I don’t often sleep nude -- well, except after sex, anyhow -- but did that night. I found myself stretching out, going through the same poses I did during the Show and Tell, and can admit to thinking about Carl's kiss. I remembered after we did the webcam thing, my husband telling me he was sure Carl was masturbating thinking about me. Maybe he was doing that now, too. Maybe my husband was, too. My own imagination was going wild. My husband often joked that when a woman masturbates she's doing a man's job. There was no man in the room to do that job, just my own imagination and fantasy, but my own fingers brought me to an orgasm, too.
And then there was my morning phone call home.
“I want to ask you,” my husband asked, “if you were just looking for an erotic break from your marriage, would you accept a date from Carl?”
That was a different way of thinking about it. “Well, honey, Carl is a really nice guy -- I don’t think I’d ever think of him as a long-term prospect or anything, but sure, I’d date him.”
“Good. Then this is what I want you to do. Be single for the day, unless it's more exciting for you to think of yourself dating while married. What do you think of that?"
My husband is a devil!
I got on campus early. The team leader I was working with told me he and some of the other members of the team would like to take me to dinner that evening. It was an unexpected invitation, but I somehow reflexively lied. "That sounds really nice, but I am sorry; I am meeting an old friend tonight," I said (I had my fingers crossed in that old childhood tradition which makes a lie, not a lie).
Noon came, the lecture hall held about a hundred fifty and it was about two thirds full. Most there were from MUSC but there was a newspaper reporter, and there was Carl. The good news is the presentation was one I had given a number of times before, having to do with too many kids getting drugs for ADD; otherwise, watching him watch me would have had me stuttering.
During the little reception after the lecture, Carl approached me. "I'd like to invite you to my club for its version of a Caesar salad," he said. "Around seven would be perfect. Will you come?"
I knew the invitation was coming.
And I knew how that evening might end.
So did my husband.
And for sure, so did Carl.
Although my knees felt weak, I accepted the date.
“May I pick you up, say six fifteen or so?”
“No,” I said, “I’d rather drive there.”
"Okay. Felix, our gateman" -- Carl lived in a gated country club community -- "will be expecting you. Meet me at my house. I’ll take us to the clubhouse.”
This was a date, a real date, and my business casual outfit was not the best date-night clothing. I had asked one of the women at MUSC about ‘recreational shopping' opportunities in Charleston and she recommended Hampton's. The attendant there recommended a layered look for a country club date: a blouse long enough to reach to just below my hips, intended to be worn outside a darker skirt. I chose one that reached just below my knees and a pair of sandals that were just a step up in class from the common ones. All that I needed was a strapless bra to satisfy the demands of the blouse and the look would be perfect. Of course, Hampton's had that too. It was $330 worth of casual-date stuff.
I took a shower at my hotel, then a quick dry off -- no, I did not let my hair get wet --- then dabs of perfume here and there (did I really put a dab between my breasts?). The mirror told me my new outfit was, if not sexy, at least sensual.
It was time to call home. “I’m conflicted; I’m all dressed up, but the wise thing would be for me to cancel and stay here in my room. Things could get complicated.”
“I want you to enjoy yourself and just let things flow,” he said. “I was thinking about that when I went to bed last night,” he continued, “and do you remember me telling you I was sure Carl was masturbating after that photo session?”
"Yes."
“Well, my dear, thinking about you and him is exquisite agony, and I masturbated last night and again this morning, and I think I will again when you say you’re actually going to his house.
"So," he continued, "this is a chance for a different man to tell you what I had been telling you ever since you went through menopause. You are a beautiful sexy woman. Act like one. Enjoy the attention of an attractive man. You're far from home, at a place you probably won't be going back to anytime soon. If you want to feel sexy, let the evening unfold. I am sure Carl likes that you are married and have permission for this date."
"Like?"
"Trust me, honey, seducing another man's wife is sexier than seducing a single woman and he knows you're not out to find a long-term relationship but that you and I are testing some boundaries."
"You make it sound like a fling," I said, almost complaining.
"No, I want it to be a seduction, to have things just happen; there's no script, no plan. Just let that erotic dark corner of your mind go free. I want you to do it. What happens there will only make our own marriage better. Do I have to say it? Do I have to say if that means his cock is going to erupt in your vagina that would be wonderful?"
He said it out loud! He said it was okay with him if Carl fucked me!
"That would be okay with you?"
"Honey, come on, we talked about that a lot. Don't let it just be our foreplay fantasy. I hope the next time you are in your room will be tomorrow morning and that your bed will not have been slept in. I want you to have a glorious night and remember every detail because you're going to have to tell me everything,"
I called home again just before pulling up to the gatehouse at the country club. "This is your last chance to tell me to be sensible," I told my husband.
He replied, "I would rather imagine what will be happening in the next couple of hours. Remember, you're my wife and I'm willing to lend you to Carl so long as you're willing to be lent."
"Hi, Professor Baker," the gatekeeper at Carl's country club said. "Carl told me to call him when you arrived. I guess your GPS is telling you to take the first left and follow Shore Road; his house is the third one on the left after the clubhouse. You can't miss it, and he'll be waiting for you."
It was the longest half mile I had ever driven.
Carl was waiting in the driveway of an impressive McMansion; he was clearly very successful at his trade.
"The clubhouse is right over there; let's walk to it," he said, taking my hand. Taking my hand? That was a presumed intimacy, far different than yesterday's dinner with its promise of ‘no presumptions'. We walked, looking every bit like lovers if anyone was watching, the few hundred yards to the clubhouse. Here's a confession: I liked being with him, looking like that, wanted to be seen, wanted people to assume we were lovers.
The dining room was, well, 'posh' comes close to describing it. Henry, our waiter, brought a bottle of wine. Carl approved the aroma of the cork and sample taste. Alex, the chef, brought over a small cart and went through the ceremony of shredding Roman lettuce, then mixing the ingredients for the dressing. There was an added elegant touch: the salad cart had a burner and Alex sautéed bread cubes in butter and garlic, turning them into croutons then added them, still sizzling, to our salads. We were then left to our wine and salad.
It was wonderful, but I didn't eat much. Two of Carl's friends stopped at our table, and being introduced as "My guest, Tina Baker, she's a visiting scholar…" I am sure left them with the impression something was going on between us. Well, during dinner he caressed my leg -- it was a maybe a light R-rated caress, but it was very much a confident and possessive touch. Yes, something was going on.
The wine was gone, the salad dishes empty. Carl helped move my chair back, and embraced me from behind, in full view of his friends. He whispered in my ear that "You know this wasn't just about dinner, don't you?"
I was not sure my knees would keep me upright and his kiss on my neck did not help.
He took my hand and led me from the dining room. I am sure the people who saw us had no doubt about what was ahead.
He had wine on ice at his house and with a glass of it in hand, he took me on a house tour. It was a large house for a single man. We stopped in his den. "Hey, kick off your shoes; this rug does magic things to your feet," he said. I did, and it was; it had the deepest pile I had ever walked on.
There were four bedrooms on the upper floor and three baths.
One of the bedrooms was set up as a home office with lots of electronics with blinking LEDs and a wall of law books. He just offered a wave at it but I wanted to go inside. It was of course very masculine, but what interested me most were some certificates on the wall.
"You've donated blood one hundred times?"
"Well, more than that, that's a few years old," he said. "I go every six weeks."
He already knew from our online chats the blood drives I attend are on campus but they are at eight-week intervals.
"So you like knowing, like I do, that there is some of you circulating in a half dozen or more people right now, don't you?"
I agreed.
There was another little card in a frame; it looked like a thank-you card.
"Why do you keep that there?"
"You weren't supposed to see that," he said. "I look at it when things aren't going well; it's a mood booster."
"You'll have to explain that."
He took a deep sigh and pulled up his golf shirt to reveal a four-inch scar just below his ribcage. "I was a very good tissue match for a kid in kidney failure so now he has one of mine. That's a thank-you note from his parents. Let's move on; I want to show you the rest of my house."
He took my hand and led me out of the room, but that little room and its secrets told me more about the character of this man than I would otherwise have ever known.
The master bedroom had French doors opening to a balcony and a view of the moon and its reflection on the ocean and the waves breaking on the beach.
Carl was standing behind me, enjoying watching me enjoy the view, and yes, it was almost overwhelmingly romantic.
This was why I was here. I felt his arms encircle me, then his breath on my neck, and finally his lips were there too.
"You are," he whispered, "more beautiful than the view. You're going to love seeing the sunrise -- at this time of year it floods the bedroom and the bed just as it breaks the horizon."
Did he have to say that, make the presumption I'd be here then? But I've never seen any trace of pretense about Carl. I was in his arms, in his bedroom. and pretending to be coy about it just did not work between two intelligent adults. Carl expected me to surrender to him, my husband wanted me to surrender too, and. . .
. . .and so did I.
I just backed into his embrace, covered his hands with my own, and enjoyed the sensation of his breath on my neck, of his kiss there, the tingling sensation of his lips and tongue on my ear.
He turned me around, and I was in his arms again, and this kiss was the first serious kiss of the evening. It was not asking last night's question. No, this was a kiss by a confident and somewhat intimidating man, a kiss that was the start of foreplay, a kiss by a man who expected to bed me.
But kisses are not one-sided. Why not be truthful? I was kissing back, kissing a man I wanted to bed me, surrendering to him.
His right hand was caressing my back, down my side, over my hip, and up again. It was a possessive touch. He was holding me close and made the warmth and hardness around his groin obvious too.
"I have to tell you," he whispered, "that ever since that show and tell you and your husband teased me with I imagined you here on my bed. I am sure he and you imagined that too."
I nodded yes.
"It takes a very secure man to let his wife live out that kind of fantasy and I like knowing he's that kind of man," he whispered. "I am honored to be part of it."
The hand that was on my hip started up again, this time under my blouse, and soon I was being hugged again with both of his hands on my back, on my skin. I was melting in his arms.
"I had imagined kissing you but last night's kiss was so much better than I imagined, and feeling you in my arms last night was so much better than I imagined, and having you here, in my bedroom, in my arms, is better than any fantasy."
I was, I thought, totally in his control. My knees were feeling weak. A part of me I did not know exist emerged, a submissive part. "It is living out a fantasy for me, too," I told him, while both of his hands were under my blouse, caressing my back until they converged on my bra strap.
I felt his fingers exploring the strap and its clasp and then felt what had to be his thumbs under it...felt its tension increase as he seemed to be grasping it.