Thawing Out: Meatballs & Sex

We sat at my new table in silence with more emptiness than the meatballs or wine could fill. I could see the nervousness in the flicker of his eyes, the flare of his nostrils, and the set of his jaw. I felt all the same things with all the same questions swirling around in my head, unanswered. I liked him and he liked me, but would it be enough to repair the damage done by lies and half truths? Could trust be reestablished or was it gone forever because of the cruel hand life had dealt us? The flickering flame of the candles I had placed between us on the table caught my eye and I finally decided to take the chance.

"I'm new to this, I think you know. Deception is not something I do well and our sitting here like this just proves it. I took advice from a man who has been deceiving others for a lifetime with and without good reasons I suspect but I chose not to tell the truth and not just to you but to my entire family and friends. Maybe it's the wrong the choice, but the alternative doesn't feel any more right. Can you understand that?" I said.

"I don't fault you. I was surprised to see you there, but even seeing you there I didn't put the pieces together properly until I truly saw you. And yes, I understand. I, myself, have learned I can't share every detail of my work with anyone because anonymity is what keeps me safe. What happened over there was unfortunate. I nearly got us both killed because I reacted with my heart and not my head. I'm sorry." Mark said.

"I didn't ask you here for apologies. I would offer my own to you but the truth is neither of us have anything to be sorry for. How could either of us have known about the other? The answer is we couldn't and without knowing, there was every reason to keep secrets and no reason to divulge them." I said.

"What do you propose we do now?" Mark asked.

"Tell the truth as much as we can. Admit there will be secrets between us and they are not betrayals but protections for both ourselves and each other." I said.

"There is only one truth I want to know." Mark said.

"What is that?"

"Deep down are you the girl I met that night at dinner or are you the one I saw over there?"

"Can't I be both?"

"I don't think so. They look the same, but that's where the similarities end."

"Maybe the real difference is that when I'm here I hold back, I don't give in to my impulses or instincts but out there, I do. Does that make me a different person or just a more complete one? I like to think the latter." I said.

"So what you are saying is you are, at your core, the woman I saw over there and here, you are just a portion of yourself." Mark said.

"I guess so." I said.

"Why?" Mark asked.

"I don't know. There is something liberating at being someone else and it's like I can be me without restrictions." I replied.

"So you are afraid of disappointing someone if you were to act like you want to act as Allison?" Mark queried.

"I don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense I guess. I'm not really afraid so much as I've grown up with all these expectations about who I am supposed to be, how I am supposed to behave and sometimes what I want doesn't mesh well with who I am supposed to be. Most of the time I try to live up to those expectations instead of my desires but when I'm Virginia I don't have to do that. I can do what I want instead."

My fork pushed around the remnants of food left on my plate, my appetite having suddenly disappeared. I could hear the tones behind his words and the sound, like a train whistle, was a sad warning indicating our time had come to an end. The night had begun with the hope I could somehow find the words to convince Mark to stay by me, but instead the words which kept tumbling recklessly from my tongue were pushing him away. It would be for the best and in the rational corners of my brain I was completely aware of the complications a relationship with Mark or any man, would bring to my life. These were things I could not avoid but my heart is not a rational creature and the things it wants are not ruled by logic or probable consequences.

"I saw you; Beautiful, intelligent, willful, and not afraid of anything and I fell in love with the glimpse of woman I don't even know existed inside of the woman I'm just starting to get to know. Virginia West has conquered all her fears but Allison...What is it that Allison Beaumont is afraid of?" Mark said.

"I'm not afraid." I said, feeling defensive despite knowing there was more compliment than criticism in the words he chose to utter.

"I think you are. You want things but you don't ask for them. You hide behind shy eyes and strands of not so stray hairs in your face, but I see through it for what it is; Fear, pure and simple. Rejection, disappointment, acceptance, maybe all of the above, but whatever it is you're afraid of, you don't have to be afraid with me. " He said.

I shook my head. It wasn't that I knew for certain he wrong but the explanation fell short of answering the question that has been echoing inside of me since the day I stepped outside of Joseph Candle's limousine with a new identity to call my own. If my own psyche has complicated the issues further, and it might have, then I'll just have to deal with that complication at some point but fear was not the right word for the root of restraint within me, if anything it is the uncertainty resulting from not knowing myself from the woman in the mirror.

"I wasn't the only one hiding things, you know." I said.

"No, you weren't, but the difference between us is I'm not hiding anything now." He replied.

"No? So what were you doing work for Alexander Kemp?" I asked.

"Earning a living. I've worked for him off and on for the last couple of years and to my knowledge this is the first time he's tried to kill anyone." Mark answered.

"And now that he has, what do you plan on doing going forward?" I asked.

"You are seriously asking me if I would continue working for a man who tried to kill us?"

"That wasn't exactly what I was wondering."

"Oh good cause here I thought maybe you were just deflecting the conversation because I was getting to close to things you don't want to share."

"I'm just pointing out I'm not the only between the two of us living a dual life." I said.

"I do certain odd jobs which require a degree of discretion, that's not a dual life. I don't go around pretending to be someone else." Mark said.

"Pretending? Is that what you call me doing my job? So what? I'm not that smart or that bold or what? Tell me what is it that makes my life pretend and yours the real thing?"

"Don't put words in my mouth. It's beneath you."

"How would you even know? Do you even know me at all?"

Somehow the quiet romantic dinner I had planned out turned into a verbal sparring match. Instead of sitting at the table enjoying my first success in the kitchen and a bottle of wine, we were standing, leaning over the table, and practically shouting at each other. Whatever I had thought would happen this night between us was quickly disappearing like a child's red balloon, carried away by a wind strong enough to rip the curled ribbon from between clenched fingers.

"I know you. I know you better than you know yourself right this minute." Mark said.

"Then why don't you introduce me to me?" I demanded.

Emotion burned in my eyes and cheeks like teardrops unable to fall. Mark moved around the table until the only thing left between us was the mounting tension in the air and the misunderstandings creating it. I was torn between two strong desires and neither seemed to belong to me.

"Just remember, you asked." He said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

He reached out and yanked me to him. His mouth devoured my every breath and any will I might have had to pull away. The moment I began to relax and enjoy the rough attention, he pushed me away toward my bedroom door. I stumbled and eyelashes fluttered as I tried to comprehend what was happening and why and if I even wanted it. He didn't give me a chance to decide anything.

Strong arms spun toward the door and pushed me up against it's surface while his chin brushed my hair aside, baring the delicate skin of my neck to his hungry lips. I tried to turn around to face him but his body kept me pinned in place with my breasts flattened against the cold wood as his fingers drew down the zipper meant to keep my dress fastened in place. The kiss of open air on my spine sent the tickle of goosebumps along my skin, melted away by the warmth of Mark's breath on the space where neck and shoulder meet. The bristles of shaven facial air tickled my earlobe as his cheek brushed against me. The straps of my dress slipped from my shoulders and my trembling fingers turned the doorknob, opening the door to my bedroom and sending the two of us tumbling to its floor.

Landing on my back I looked up at Mark coming down on me and decided I wanted him more than I wanted him to leave. My hands grabbed at the buttons of his shirt and pulled until no thread or buttonhole kept his bare chest from me. I stretched upward toward him aching for the tenderness of his lips on mine, but he pushed me back down with laughing eyes and callous hands.

"You," He said, "are a very bad girl."

"What does that make you?" I asked.

"Priest, doctor, principal, school teacher, and anything else you might need." He replied.

He pulled us both to our feet and removed the remnants of his torn shirt from his body. With a casual dismissive motion he threw it across the room to land in the far corner. I let my dress fall to the ground and then backed my way to the bed without ever taking my eyes off of him. Mark followed with an expression somewhere between lust and amusement.

I expected him to pin me to the bed and have his way with me, but I should have known he had more in mind than simple sex. He laid his hands on my shoulders and pulled me back toward him and then before I knew what was happening he spun around and sat on the bed himself holding me out in front of him. Our eyes locked for only an instant but in that instant an entire volume of emotion passed between us. Thoughts were irrelevant, all that mattered was the raw desires pulling us together.

A single corner of Marks mouth turned up like half a hungry smile. His hands traced softly down my arms and then grasped the wrist of each hand firmly, pulling my arms together. I allowed it without hesitation or wonder and a moment later I found myself pulled over his lap, my hot face resting against the bed and my legs split apart by his knee. Whatever thoughts I might have had slipped away as my dress already had and I lived only for the moment and sensations, pushing myself against his body and opening myself to him for everything and anything he wanted.

What happened next should have made me angry or something, anything, except what it did. Mark's hand slapped down against the soft flesh of my posterior producing an earth shattering slap, perhaps not for the rest of world but for me in any regard. The tingling sensation traveling through my body, up my spine, ringing in my ears, was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I should have pulled away from him, I should have slapped him hard across the face for having the audacity to think he had the right, but instead I curled into him and buried my face in the crumpled sheets beneath me.

If Mark gave any pause to consider my reaction or whether he should continue, it was outside of my perceptions. From the first slap of his open palm he established a slow pace, neatly bouncing from cheek to cheek. The warmth spread and the tingle continued to grow and spread throughout my body until I felt myself shaking from head to toe. There was the familiar sting of pain from being spanked, but the pain was all the only familiar sensation. Mark's attentions felt nothing like punishment or chastisement but rather like a lover building a romantic fire just for the two of us. If I cried, the tears were only a release of pent up emotion and fears unspoken, but finally broken.

His hands found their way to massage themselves in the heat they had created, slipping into the crevices of tender flesh, exciting trembling nerves to the point of overload and then returning to their previous state of rising and falling. The irregular motion and patterns forced me to relax and relish in every moment without any care about what would come next. Somehow Mark had understood the desires in my flesh while they had remained a foreign mystery to me. I was putty in his hands, clay on his wheel, and like a master artist he sculpted not what he imagined, but was always present in the raw materials before him.

The spanking ended and moist lips tickled my spine with gentle kisses from the top of my bottom to the base of my neck, pausing only briefly while he unclasped my bra. His confident hands turned me onto my back and with a curious boy's smile he lifted the unfastened undergarment from my breasts, slipped the straps from my arms and tossed it aside to join the other garments strewn across my bedroom floor. I laid still beneath him and smiled up at him wondering how we ended up where we were from where we had been and what had taken us so long in the first place.

Mark was ready for his own taste of pleasure and I was more than ready to accompany him on the journey. His hands crossed all boundaries and I pulled him to me, finally able to allow my own lips to wander wherever they wanted to go. We tumbled together on the mattress discarding the last pieces of clothing between us, his pants being the most complicated but after a minor amount of contortion, they too flew through the air, crashing to the floor, unnoticed and forgotten long before the moment.

Thoughts and burdens of life and responsibility faded away into the darkness as we explored the existence of love, lust, or something like them in the sheets of my too small bed. Time no longer meant a thing as we maneuvered together, kissing and caressing the sensations of ecstasy into each other until our trembling bodies could take no more and exhaustion, physical and emotional, carried us away into the land of dreams.