This is different from my usual
stories. No naked sex slaves in it, no
BDSM, just two people enjoying each other for a brief interlude.
Omega
Man
“I read your poem.” It was the end of my Omega networking
meeting, and I was making my way through the crowd towards the door.
I’m bad at names and worse at faces.
It’s the bane of my networking group
existence, especially because about 80 percent of the members are middle-aged
men who work in finance. How can anyone
tell them apart? I tried to look
interested but not too friendly, although I had a sinking feeling. “Which one?” I asked, but I was sure I already
knew.
He gave a double take, like it had
not occurred to him that I might have written more than one poem. “The one that won the contest at the library.” Yup. My
obscure neighborhood library only printed about 100 copies of the pamphlet with
the winning poems, but just my luck that this guy had somehow found one of
them.
Never let them see you sweat. I would not have submitted that poem if I had
thought it had a chance of winning. I
had thrown it together and barely proofread it before emailing it off. The theme of the contest this year was “Together.” My poem was about endless business lunches
with pasty-faced white men where the topics tended to run the gamut from golf
to beer. Anyone who knew I was an Omega
member would recognize I was writing about it.
I made very specific fun of a few interactions. I hoped none of them had been with --
Zeb.
Thank heaven for nametags. I was
pretty sure he had not been part of the conversations I had written about because
his name was unusual enough that I would have remembered it. Probably.
I tried to smile ingratiatingly, but
I just ended up stammering “Oh. Umm.” Good going.
Zeb grinned. “Your secrets are safe with me, Diana.”
Secrets, plural? Oh, shit, I had also written in that poem about
how I was ready to move on from my divorce and open my heart. And my legs.
But not at Omega. I was here for marketing purposes, nothing
else.
“Would you like to grab some coffee
with me?”
I looked down at my meetup list,
pretending confusion. “Are we assigned
together this week?” I asked.
“Nope,” Zeb said. “I just thought I might be able to surprise
you by being an interesting pasty-faced white man.”
Fuck fuck fuck. I tried to retreat to full networking
mode. “Remind me what you do?” I said.
“I’m an investment advisor.” Of course.
Zeb must have seen the look on my
face, because he shrugged. “That’s not
all I am,” he said. “Just like you’re
not just a lawyer. We both have depth.” He raised his eyebrows while he said it, like
he was being both ironic and completely serious at the same time.
“ “If you tell me something genuinely
interesting about yourself I’ll get coffee with you.” Why did I say that? Why was I not just walking away? I suddenly realized that we were the only
people left in the room.
He tilted his head. For the first time I really looked at him,
trying to differentiate him from everyone else.
50ish like me, about six feet tall, salt and pepper hair, a bit pudgy,
the standard navy suit. Definitely
pasty-faced. But he had pretty eyes. They were bluish green, like in a photograph
of the ocean.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve had a crush on you since you first joined
Omega last year, when you talked about how you knew you wanted to be a lawyer
after your friend was killed by the drunk driver.”
“You
know that story was marketing, right?”
“Really? It wasn’t true?”
“It
was. But it was also marketing.” I blushed.
I had been put on the spot when I had told that story, and I hadn’t
realized that people were really listening to me.
Zeb
looked contrite. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I talk to you at every single
meeting and you never, ever know who I am.”
Oh, god, I hate this. I’ve read all the articles on how to remember
people. Look them in the eye, repeat
their names, use mnemonics. I can do
that one-on-one or even in small groups, but so many people come to our Omega chapter
and there are a lot of visiting members at every meeting and it’s overwhelming.
By now I know the names of all the women in my group, at least, but the men . .
. there are just too many of them.
“Forget
it. I’m sorry. I know we’re not supposed
to hit on each other.” He turned
away.
“No, wait,” I said. “I’m the one who’s sorry.” My face was
hot. “We can get coffee if you still
want to.”
He gave me a crooked, kind of dorky grin.
“Networking coffee? Or, you know,
coffee coffee? Because I’m fine with
either.”
I fell back on bravado. “I mean, what’s the difference? Either way it’s small talk, right?”
Someone came into the room and
starting cleaning the sideboard with the picked-over breakfast snacks on
it. We went into the hallway and grabbed
our coats from the closet. We said thank
you in unison to the receptionist, and then we both laughed. As we opened the glass doors that led to the
elevator bay Zeb said, “Well, one difference might be that if it’s coffee
coffee I might try to kiss you in the elevator.”
“Then networking coffee,” I said
without thinking. Zeb looked
disappointed. “I mean, I don’t even
know you. I don’t know if you’re married, or . . .”
Now he was annoyed “Seriously?
In this morning’s meeting I said it was the fifth anniversary of my
divorce, remember?”
I did remember someone saying
that. I just hadn’t remembered that it
was him.
The elevator came. I glanced at my reflection in the mirrored
doors. I don’t really enjoy wearing
makeup or straightening my hair – which, through some genetic quirk is still
naturally dark brown – but it’s part of the game. Today I had overslept and had thrown on a
bold, almost unprofessional firebrick red lipstick. My mascara brought out my hazel eyes, which
are one of my few vanities – that, and my legs, which my flouncy black skirt
and heels did a good job of showing off.
It did not, however, hid my paunchy stomach or my double chins.
Zeb smiled at me in the mirror. He was carefully standing a couple of feet
away. “You look good,” he said. He
tilted his head again.
I
suddenly visualized him doing that at the conference table during meetings. “I know!” I exclaimed. “You live in the suburbs, you take the commuter rail into town, you
have two sons and a golden retriever, and you play poker!” I was so proud of myself for putting together
some of the tidbits he had said at the meetings.
He nodded. “Two points to Gryffindor,” he said. The elevator door opened and he led me
towards the café on the first floor of the office building. “And, just so you know, I am completely, one
hundred percent single.”
“Me too,” I said.
We went into the café. I ordered decaf tea and Zeb ordered black
coffee. It was mid-morning and the place
was almost empty. I was surprised when
he led me to the back of the restaurant and then around a corner. There were a couple of small round tables
there, invisible from the rest of the restaurant. “I come here to work a lot after Omega
meetings while I wait for the next train,” he said. “Nobody else ever comes back here this time
of day.”
We sat next to each other on the
bench against the wall. Neither of us said
anything for a minute as we sipped our drinks.
I said into the silence, “So tell me about the perfect referral for you.”
This was the standard Omega line.
“Could you do something for me,
Diana?”
“What?”
“Relax a little. You’re trying so
hard. I already know that if I meet
someone who was in a car accident I’ll
send them to you. You’re obviously are
passionate about your clients and very good at what you do. You sold me a long time ago.”
I deflated. Mortifyingly, my eyes welled with tears of
frustration. Of course I was trying
hard. I was building a law practice that
would support my kids and me, while I was also taking care of them without any
help. It was exhausting.
“Oh, jeez, I didn’t mean to hurt
your feelings. I just meant that I
really want to get to know you better. I’m so clumsy at this. I’m sorry.”
I took a deep breath. “Trying hard is who I am. I don’t know any other way to be.”
“Then it’s the perfect way for you
to be.” He smiled at me over his
coffee. Surprisingly, it comforted me,
and I actually did relax a little. I
liked him, I realized. That was unusual
for me – maybe a side effect of always trying too hard.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
He nodded. “Have you ever dated
anyone from Omega?”
“No.
I’ve barely dated anyone at all since I’ve been divorced.”
I took a breath. “Do you kiss and tell?”
He looked me in the eye. “Never.”
I don’t know why I took the
plunge. “Do you still want to kiss me?”
“Yes.” He put down his coffee cup.
I leaned in towards him, but he took
my hand and brought it up to his mouth. He
brushed his lips against the back of my knuckles while looking up at me. Suddenly I remembered what it was to melt at
someone’s touch. “My ideal referral,” he
said, as he turned my hand over, “is someone with between $300,000 and $1
million in non-real estate assets, who wants to make sure they are properly
diversified.” He kissed my palm. “That’s just my Omega speech, though.” He kissed my wrist. I made a little noise. I never do that. “My boss likes it when I bring on people with
more money.” He lingered over the inside
of my arm. “But I love talking to people
who are really struggling, to help them come up with a plan.” He carefully put my hand on the table.
“That’s one of my passions.”
“Um,” I said. My hand was throbbing, and the throbbing
traveled upwards. I wanted him to touch
me again. “That’s me. My husband got everything in the
divorce. All my savings. I got the equity in the house, but I can’t
sell it because I have the kids. I’m 51
and I’m starting from scratch.” There
went my carefully built Omega façade. I
couldn’t look at Zeb.
He put his arm around me. Even through both of our suits I could feel
how warm he was. “I can look at your
numbers if you want,” he said.
“I know how to look at numbers. I have a plan. For the next 21 years I work my tail
off. I’ve calculated exactly how much I
have to make, on average, every single day.
It’s a lot. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
I
nodded against him. “I’m only two years
in, and so far I’m on track, but . . .”
He was right. It was
exhausting. I usually didn’t let myself
think about that. “I’m sorry. You wanted to make out with a powerful
attorney, and instead you got a whining mess.”
He
tightened his arm against me. “I wanted
to make you with you, Diana,” he said.
His chest rumbled as he spoke. “I
still do, if you want to. Every aspect
of you. Powerful attorney, struggling
single mom, whatever else is in there. I
want to know you and I want to touch you.
All of you. If you also want to.”
“What
if I’m a seral killer?”
I
could feel his smile. “You’re not. But I think you’re afraid of what will happen
if we start kissing. So we don’t have
to. And if we start, we can stop
whenever either of us wants.”
“I
haven’t been with anyone since my husband,” I blurted. God, I was telling him all my secrets. I was glad our faces were at an angle where
we couldn’t see each other.
He
kissed the side of my head. I turned so
that we were facing each other. He just
sat there, until I leaned forward and our lips met. I opened my mouth just a little. He tasted like coffee. The
kiss was soft and romantic, and the thought made me pull back and laugh.
“What?”
he said.
“It’s
just – I haven’t made out with anyone in decades.”
He
cocked his head and put his hand on my shoulder. I leaned in to kiss him again. His hand drifted down and unbuttoned the top
button of my suit jacket. I pulled back
again. “No one ever comes back here?”
“No. I come here almost every week. No one has ever bothered me. Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” We kissed some more. Another button. He reached under my jacket and palmed my
breast over my blouse. I moaned a
little. It had been so long. His thumb found my nipple. Oh my god.
I
shifted so that my legs crossed his lap.
I could feel his hardness against the outside of my thigh. I pressed against it. My pussy sprang to life. It had been so long since anything other than
my fingers or a toy had had any effect on it.
I moaned again, and wriggled against his cock.
He
stopped kissing me and asked, “How far do you want to go, Diana?”
I
stilled. “Not all the way,” I said. “We would have to talk first, and --” I was embarrassed. I didn’t know how to have this conversation.
“Diseases,
and birth control, and all the rest,” he said.
“And on the off chance that someone comes back here we don’t want to get
arrested.”
I
started to pull away. “Will someone
come?”
He
tightened his arm around me. “No. They never do, I swear.” He kissed me again, a short peck on the
lips. At the same time he put his hand
on my inner thigh, just above my knee.
It burned me. “We can go just far
enough that we don’t have to have a conversation,” he said. He moved his hand up. I was glad that I had forgotten to put on my usual
biker shorts under my skirt this morning.
God, I wanted his hand higher.
“Just touch each other, like this.”
His finger brushed against my panties, over my clit.
I
panted. “Yes,” I said. “I want that.” He brushed my clit again. I wriggled.
I tried to grab his cock through his slacks, but the angle wasn’t quite
right. He shifted me a little so I had
better access. I took a second to
unbutton his pants and unzip his fly. I
moved his underwear – boxers – so that his cock could spring up through the
hole in it. I licked the palm of my hand and grabbed it. He
moaned like I had earlier, and moved my panties to reach under them.
His
fingers were magic. He pushed into my
pussy and I cried out. Then he moved
almost back to my clit, but not quite, and pulsed there. I was dizzy.
I tried to focus on his cock, wanting to give him the pleasure that he
was giving me. He moved his finger up
and down my slit. I squeezed his cock
harder. And then he slowly moved
upwards, until at last he was touching my clit.
Oh god. He slid down to my pussy
and pressed in again, and then went back to my clit. “Stop,” I said. “I don’t want to come without you.”
He
laughed. “You won’t,” he said. I let go of his cock long enough to lick my
palm again. He kept fingering me, my
pussy, my slit, my clit. I moved up and
down on his shaft.
“When
you come, I will too,” he said. He
pushed into my pussy hard, two fingers.
I put my mouth on his shoulder so I would not cry out too loud. His thumb was on my clit and his fingers
fucked my pussy. I felt like I was
hanging over a precipice. And then he
shifted his thumb to the very top of my clit and moved it up and down, and I
fell, my pussy convulsing on his fingers, my hand convulsing on his cock, my mouth biting into his shoulder. With a grunt he thrust his cock up through my
fist and exploded onto his shirt. His
thumb still moved slowly on my clit. I stopped
coming but his touch felt so good, like love or ice cream.
I let go of his now soft cock and he
took his hand out of my panties. “So,”
he said with a smile that was just short of smug, “was that interesting enough?”
Note from the author: If you enjoyed this, check out my book with this and other short stories in it, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire.
