Northern Proposals (4 page)

"Ohhhh," she said again. "Is that what you want me to do? Pour some on you and lick it off?"

"No!" I said. "Not on me!"

"Well, then why did you bring it up?"

"I didn't bring it up, you did. It was in the groceries."

"Right. For the ice cream."

"You intended to use that chocolate on Susan."

"So then Susan would have been all sticky?"

"Not after you licked it off."

"Why would I need such a lame excuse to lick Susan?" She smiled sweetly at me. "Well, I might now, because she's with someone else, but I wouldn't have known that when I packed it. For, you know. The ice cream."

"And coffee."

"Exactly." She took the chocolate away from me again and put it back in the cupboard. "I suppose there's something kinky about the oysters I brought, too."

"You did not bring oysters."

She sighed. "You're right. I only have oyster crackers. Susan doesn't like oysters. She said they slip out."

"Slip out?"

"Well, sure. You sort of, you know."

"What?"

"Well, they're raw, right? On the shell. And you can, you know. Slide them in. Then slurp them back out."

I started laughing. "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"As ridiculous as pouring chocolate over your chest?" She paused. "It's called Venus on the Half Shell."

"Oh my god," I said, laughing harder. "You are so full of shit."

"Shouldn't knock it until you try it," she said to me with a straight face, but I saw the corners of her mouth quivering while she suppressed her own laugh.

We finished putting away the groceries, including the very soft ice cream from the cooler, without any more opportunities to tease each other.

"All right," she said. "Let's go down to the lake, then I'll set a fire while you get started working on the proposal."

"Alcohol," I said.

"I brought one bottle of wine," she replied. "If we want anything else, we can run into town. It's only a few minutes. I am happy to open the wine or run to town."

"Wine would be great," I told her.

We went out the front of the cabin, the side facing the lake. It was amazingly beautiful. I stopped and stared. "It's gorgeous." There were pine trees lining the sides of the property and two large oak trees in front of the cabin. The lake was a short walk through the grass.

"Yes, it is," she replied. "I love it up here. I'm saving my money for my own
cabin." She looked around. "It's sort of a shame. Marcy and Jon only come up about once or twice a month. It sits empty a lot." She stared out to the lake and sighed. "But that's how it is."

Then she took me by the
hand and pulled me towards the lake, letting go once I was following after her. We stepped onto the dock, walking to the end. "There are chairs to put out, but I'll do that tomorrow," she said. We stood next to each other, looking out over the serene water.

In the distance I heard a loon
. It's such a lonely sound, reminding me of a wolf howl, and so beautiful. Jessica listened, smiling. "I love that sound," she said quietly when the loon grew silent. "If we have the windows open, we'll hear more tonight."

We stood there for a while, looking at the w
ater and listening to the sounds of nature. I recognized the crickets, but there were other sounds I couldn't identify. Jessica took a deep breath of air. I looked over at her and thought how beautiful she was. She caught me looking at her.

"What?"

"Thank you for inviting me."

She smiled. "You are welcome. Thank you for coming. I think I'm going to have more fun than if
Susan had come."

"Why is that?"

"You have a brain."

We stood there for a few more minutes, enjoying the night air, before we turned around and headed back into the cabin.

I settled down in the living room with my laptop. Jessica puttered around me, opening the windows, building a fire, and opening the wine for us. Then she joined me with her own laptop, and we used a thu
mb drive to transfer the incomplete proposal to her computer. We went over it, and I pointed out the parts that weren't done.

We
sat side by side on the sofa, each doing our portion of work on the proposal. Jessica was the numbers person. I had raw sales numbers for her, but it was her job to do the statistics on them and generate projections. Then she'd give those numbers back to me and I would tie a pretty bow on them for presentation to the client next week.

While she was working, she found some typographical errors, pointing them out to me
so I could fix them. She created the spreadsheets she would need for the calculations and was soon waiting for me to give her the final numbers.

Finally, shortly after ten,
I finished everything Jessica needed before she could complete her work. I shot everything over to her.

"I'll need maybe an hour," she said.

I set my laptop aside. "Okay. I'm going to go listen to the loons some more." She nodded. I got up and stepped outside, standing on the deck. But instead of loons, I heard a much more annoying sound: the buzz of mosquitoes. I sighed. I didn't feel like smelling like bug spray all night, so I let the annoying insects drive me back inside. Jessica was still crunching numbers, so I let her be and decided to unpack my suitcase.

I stepped into the bedroom and tossed my suitcase on the bed, opened it, and began pulling things out. I hung things up, put them into the dresser, or moved them to the bathroom as appropriate. It didn't take long. When I looked, Jessica was
still staring at her laptop screen.

I glanced over at her suitcase. It was sitting right there, and I hadn't been able to stop wondering whether she'd really brought kinky sex toys. I looked, and she couldn't see the bed from where she was sitting. What she didn't know would never hurt her.

Quietly, I moved her suitcase onto the bed and put mine on the floor of the closet, ready to be repacked Sunday when it was time to leave. Then quietly I opened her suitcase.

She had a lot of the same things I had brought. Spare jeans, toiletries,
two bathing suits, that sort of thing.

I also found a collection of silk scarves. I picked one up and rubbed it against my skin. It felt nice. I wondered why she needed more than one. They were all black, so I didn't think she had brought them for different fashion statements. I counted. There were six.

Underneath the scarves were more mysteries.

I pulled something out of the suitcase. It was purple, long, slender
, and with an unusual reverse hourglass shape. It felt like it was made out of some type of rubber. I didn't know what it was for, but I realized I hadn't as much sexual experience as I thought I had. Was I really this sheltered?

"Someone is being naughty," I heard Jessica say quietly.

I screamed in surprise, my heart immediately pounding furiously in my chest, then turned to look at her, standing in the doorway watching me. "Don't do that! You scared me."

She raised an eyebrow,
then looked pointedly at what was in my hand.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Lying compounds the offense," she said. "The only thing you're sorry about is getting caught." Her tone was cool. I couldn't tell how angry she was.

"I'm sorry
that I couldn't contain my curiosity."

She didn't respond but continued to stare at me.

"Are you mad?"

"I haven't decided
yet." Her tone hadn't improved.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop lying. Lying pisses me off far more than snooping does." She crossed her arms over her chest, still leaning against the doorframe.

We stared at each other. I hadn't moved and was still holding, well, whatever it was I was holding. Finally she looked away, sighed heavily,
then looked back. "If I choose to get angry, it will ruin the weekend. If you were my girlfriend, I would be obliged to punish you for snooping. But you're not." She paused. "You look like you don't have a clue what that is."

"I don't."

"It's a butt plug."

"It feels like rubber. Or plastic."

"Latex."

"Why?"

"Why is it made from latex?"

"Why would you use this on someone?"

"Because she wanted me to, as part of everything else I would be doing."

"Why?"

She paused. "I don't even know how to answer that, and I don't think you'd want me to demonstrate."

I immediately shoved it back into the suitcase.

"That's the kinkiest thing in there," she said. "I didn't bring that much. The plug, a vibrator, and the scarves. Pretty tame."

"Tame?"

She nodded.

"The chocolate?"

"It's really for the ice cream. And the honey really is for the tea and the biscuits I'll make tomorrow."

"Are you mad?"

"Frustrated. I'd like to be able to punish you for snooping."

"If I were Susan, what would you do to punish me?"

"A lot worse than I'd do to you, Jade." She paused. "For you, I'd make you wear it for the rest of the evening."

I squirmed at the thought
, embarrassed and excited at the same time, but then I said, "I thought that was the whole idea in the first place."

"I imagine it would be distracting long before you finished your work tonight."

"But we don't have that type of relationship. I shouldn't have snooped, and I'm sorry."

"Please don't lie about it. You were curious. I guess that's natural. No real harm done. But if you're feeling guilty, I know how you can make it up to me."

"What?"

"Backrub when we go to bed tonight. And I'm wearing what I brought to wear with Susan."

"Some sort of dominatrix outfit?"

She laughed. "No.
Undies and a black teddy like the one you almost brought."

I smiled. "Deal. Thank you for letting me off so easily." I paused. "Why so many scarves?"

"Do you have no imagination?"

"Apparently not."

"You can't be this innocent," she said, looking a little exasperated.

"Please
, just tell me."

She sighed then stepped forward, crossing the room to me. "Turn around," she ordered.

I looked at her. "What are you going to do?"

"Almost nothing. Turn around." She spoke firmly, and I found myself obeying. After a moment she stepped up behind me. "Don't move." Then she reached over me, holding one of the scarves in her hands, and placed it over my eyes, tying it off behind my head. My heart started speeding up.

"Turn around again," she said.

I turned obediently. She grabbed my hands, crossed them in front of me,
then tied them in place with one of the scarves.

"Get the idea?"

"Yes," I said, then licked my lips. "Would you have hurt her?"

"No. That's not my thing, and it's probably why she left."

"She wanted you to hurt her?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Good question. I don't know." I felt her hook the silk around my wrists with her fingers and she began tugging. "Come."

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the living room before I find it difficult to stop."

She led me carefully, and I didn't bump a thing on the way. She turned me, pushed me backwards gently, and after I had taken a small step backwards, said, "The sofa is behind you. Sit."

I sat carefully and I felt her settle down next to me. "Have you ever let a boy tie you up?"

"No. I had one ask. When I told him no, he asked if I'd tie him up. I thought it was weird. We didn't go out much after that."

"Prude." But she said it gently, and I thought perhaps she was smiling.

"Probably. Or just sheltered. It was a long time ago."

"How do you feel now?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Excited?"

"A little."

"Only a little?"

"I don't know what else you're going to do."

"You were awfully curious," she observed. "If you lie, I will know. Are you hoping I'll do more than I have
so far?"

I thought about it. My heart was pounding, and I thought she
must be able to tell. She placed her hand on my chest, not groping me, just feeling my heartbeat. I didn't pull away.

"Answer me," she ordered.

"Jessica, I don't know."

She didn't say anything right away. I felt her shift on the sofa,
then she said quietly, "Perhaps I should give you more to think about."