Paradise Lust (16 page)

Chapter 25

Leaving the large corporate meeting room, Adele marveled at how wonderfully strange it was to emerge from a conference room with such a sense of calm, clarity, and contentment. She’d been teaching the lunchtime office yoga class for a full month now, three times a week, and was still struck by this realization each time. Her co-workers filtered out around her, many rubbing their eyes, gradually transitioning back into a fully awake state after coming out of deep relaxation. Many of them gave sleepy, happy smiles to her as they passed.

“Great class, Adele,” said Margie, the matriarch/office manager of the place, giving Adele a squeeze on her shoulder.

“Thanks, Margie,” Adele said, smiling. She pulled the elastic from her ponytail, letting her hair tumble onto her shoulders. “Did you like the music? I’m experimenting with playlists.”             

“Oh, sure,” Margie said absently. “To be honest, hon, I’m concentrating too much on trying to figure out how to get myself twisted up the way you are to notice the ambience very much.”

Adele laughed. “You know it’s not about making your body look like mine,” she said. “Your version of a pose might look very different from my version, and that’s fine.”

“Well okay then,” Margie said, smiling as she let her hand drop from Adele’s shoulder. “Back to the grind,” she said, and ambled toward the ladies’ room to change.

Adele waited until the class had emptied out—in case anyone had questions or a concern they wanted to bring up privately—and then headed to her office. She felt a little guilty watching so many of her coworkers flock to the public restrooms, where they would squeeze into little stalls to change, when she had an entire room by herself to do so; but she’d worked her butt off to get this position, and continued to do so, so she didn’t feel too bad about slipping off her yoga pants in comfortable privacy.

Once she was back in her work clothes—slim-fitting khaki pants, a crisp blue button-down, and a pair of snake-print stilettos for a little kick—she slid behind her desk and picked up the lengthy document she’d been reviewing before class. It was a dense piece of legislation, filled with jargon and footnotes, and she’d been having trouble getting herself to focus.

That was actually an unusual phenomenon these days. For the first two months of her new job—as chief legal counsel for an independent lobbying organization working to help small farmers and fight government subsidies for big corporate farms—she’d been happily surprised at how much the work enthralled her. She believed in the cause, and liked her coworkers, and felt extremely valued. She was even emailing Kelly with some questions, and was close to convincing her boss to hire him as a consultant.

This had been quite unexpected. The day after she’d returned from Bali, when she’d woken up in her apartment, her brain thick with jetlag and her small room cramped with luggage, everything had seemed bleak. So bleak, in fact, that she hadn’t left her apartment for three full days, ordering food and watching horrible reality TV on her (new) laptop. The combination of heartbreak, confusion, and physical exhaustion had formed a thick blanket of despair that kept her cozy in her unmade bed.

But then, her Type A personality had come to the rescue. She’d fought against all her impulses and dragged herself out of bed and back to the yoga studio; to a coffee shop where she sat at her laptop for hours and applied for jobs; to job interviews; and, eventually, to her first day of work. And now, the bleakness she’d felt that first morning seemed a distant memory.

Yet somehow, the heartbreak of the last time she left Danny’s hut remained as vivid as ever. In spite of her overall happiness, her secure knowledge that she was doing exactly what she was meant to do, she couldn’t deny that her heart was broken. She’d brushed off suitors, deflected questions from friends about whether she was dating, and—most important of all—allowed herself no opportunity to reflect on this difficult emotion. But it was undeniably still there, a heavy cloud that hung at the edge of even the bluest sky.

The words on the page below her blurred. She wasn’t ready to dive straight from yoga class into this impenetrable document; she needed to ease her way back in.

She swiveled her chair around to face her computer and opened up her email. As the page loaded, as always, her stomach fluttered with butterflies. Of course, she knew it was silly—no, stupid—but she couldn’t help it. Maybe, maybe this time, there would be something from him.

Nothing.

She scanned her other emails—nothing interesting, nothing urgent—and turned back to the thick stack of papers on her desk. Soon, she was absorbed in her work.

The following week was gray and gloomy, even by Seattle standards, and Adele was relying on lunchtime yoga to give her a little jolt of brightness and energy. She came to the conference room early, set up her music and yoga blocks, and watched the room fill up. It was more packed than usual—even for a Monday, when people tended to flock to her class in penance for weekend overindulgence. Adele felt a little burst of pride at the thought that this might be because of rave reviews circulating the office by word of mouth.

She wandered through the room, helping arrange mats so that everyone fit. As she headed toward a particularly congested corner, she saw the clock tick from 11:59 to noon and pivoted on her heel. She felt strongly about starting her classes on time—one hour of yoga was barely enough, she didn’t want to skimp by minutes on either end, plus it looked like someone had taken charge of the crowded corner and laid order to the mats.

She rang the small gong she kept at the front of the studio, and watched with gratification as her students (her colleagues!) settled quietly onto their mats, legs crossed and eyes closed. They looked so at ease. She felt the same way. She began class.

Despite the fact that Ajuni had sometimes taken “hands-on” instruction too far, Adele felt she’d benefited greatly from the individual attention he’d given during practice. Because of this, she strove to provide the same tailored teaching to her classes, moving through the room as she taught. It was a little contest she had with herself to try to have a one-on-one interaction with each person, whether it was a physical adjustment, a compliment or suggestion, or just eye contact and a smile. Today’s larger-than-usual class made that task a bit more challenging, but she was giving it her best effort.

She was standing behind Ted, a heavyset accountant who had surprised her by becoming a regular early on, trying to guide him into a better aligned warrior two.

“Set your feet a bit wider apart from side to side,” she said quietly, and held his torso gently as he did so, stabilizing him. He wobbled, his sizeable midsection leaning heavily back into her, and she almost fell over. She quickly caught herself—and him—and assessed his stance. “Much better,” she murmured, and continued on toward the back right corner of the room.

“Set your focus about a foot and a half in front of your right foot,” she said. Now begin to pour all the weight into your right leg, feeling your left become lighter and lighter until it just—woosh!—lifts itself off the floor. As slowly as you need, bring your upper body forward and down, letting your right fingertips rest lightly on the floor or a block,” she continued, glancing around at the myriad forms of half moon pose taking shape throughout the room.

Her eyes alit on one pose, a man—the person who had dealt with the mat congestion in the back corner, if she wasn’t mistaken—whose hips were too square to the floor, rather than opened up to the left side of the room.

“Let your hips open up to the side of the room,” she said to the class as she moved toward the man, her eyes on his still un-aligned pelvis. He would need a little more help. She stood behind him, assessing how best to help. Leaning down, she said to the back of his head, “I’m going to adjust your hips, is that okay?” The sandy blonde head made a tiny movement of assent—full-on nods could seriously throw off your balance.

She straightened herself and gently wrapped her hand around the sturdy curve of his left hipbone, her fingertips pressing lightly into the firm flesh of his lower abdomen. Her other hand rested just above his right buttock, which she couldn’t help but notice was the most perfectly formed ass she’d seen in recent memory. She chided herself internally for having the thought—he was a student! And a colleague! Double no-no!—but allowed herself some leeway because of the incredibly close-fitting black yoga shorts he had on. Most men in the office wore schlubby sweatpants or basketball shorts to yoga, and though she’d never imagined that male yoga shorts could be a sexy thing, apparently they could.

Ushering the thought out of her mind, she focused on the adjustment. She needed to guide her mind toward thoughts of open ilia and stacked scapulae, and away from the supple, rounded curvature of his muscles, the suggestive concave slope of his stomach. Careful not to disrupt his balance, she carefully lifted his left hipbone up toward the ceiling, guiding his right to follow. His hips opened up the side of the room, legs in perfect alignment for the pose. Seeing that his balance looked solid, she decided to challenge him to make the pose more difficult.

“If you feel comfortable here, slowly start to turn your head to look up at your left hand,” she murmured, conscious that the class was getting antsy and she’d need to move them to a new pose soon.

The man obediently began to turn his head, rotating in small increments from the floor, to the side wall, to the ceiling. As he did so, she felt her heartbeat quicken, her stomach flood with butterflies, her knees weaken. Her brain hadn’t yet processed what she was seeing, but her body had gone into full-on freak-out mode. After what seemed like an eternity, her brain caught up: this perfect ass, this sandy blonde head, this upturned face—they belonged to none other than Danny.

Involuntarily, her fingers clenched, and the abrupt squeeze threw him off balance. He wobbled on one leg, she reflexively gripped harder to hold him upright, and by the time she heard his hoarse whisper of “Jesus Adele, let go!” it was too late. They both tumbled to the floor, Adele sitting down hard with a thump, Danny landing belly-first, half on his mat and half sprawled over her legs. Their eyes met, a pregnant moment of silence passed, and then they both exploded with laughter.

Adele’s entire body convulsed with laughs, her lungs laboring and stomach aching with the effort. Tears streamed down her face, her hands trembled, her face contorted into an expression she could tell was the opposite of sexy. It felt great. Of course she should resume class soon, she could see heads turning out of her peripheral vision, but not yet. She’d never abandoned herself so fully to a feeling—at least never in public.

Finally, as her breathing began to return to normal and the body-shaking guffaws had subsided to giggles, she felt a light touch on her arm. Danny’s hand. As soon as it had come, it was gone, discreetly returned to his side, so that she almost wondered if she’d imagined it. Then he looked at her, a few straggling chuckles escaping his mouth, and gave her that sparkling wink. It had been real.

“Okay everybody, sorry about that,” Adele said, standing up and adjusting her rumpled tank top. “But that’s a perfect example of how yoga doesn’t just mean doing all the poses perfectly—it means embracing the moment, even the ‘mistakes,’ and finding joy in them.” She was just thinking out loud, buying time as she walked to the front of the room and tried to regroup, and yet the words sounded right. “Let’s all meet back together in downward dog.”

The rest of the hour was a blur. She did her best to focus on getting the class through their practice—they deserved their yoga, after all—though she couldn’t help but sneak glances toward Danny in the back corner every few minutes. Was she hallucinating? Would he be gone the next time she looked? But every time, there he was, hanging down in forward bend, hips thrust toward the sky in bridge pose (Adele may or may not have added that pose at the last minute…), lying serene and still in savasana.

When class ended, she lingered as she normally did, though this time for a different reason. Though she felt guilty admitting it, she made a show of looking intently at her phone while the class filtered out, trying to discourage anyone from approaching to ask a question or chat lest they prevent her from getting to talk to him. When she sensed it was safe, she glanced up and looked around the room. Her stomach dropped—what she’d been fearing all class had come true. He was gone.

Chapter 26

Danny hadn’t expected the yoga class to go that way. Though, to be honest, he hadn’t had any idea what to expect. Just less…emotion, perhaps? He’d envisioned it as a gesture of peace, equally tinged with playfulness and the suggestion of romance, but hadn’t really taken the time to think about what the actual class would be like.

As soon as he’d walked into the room and seen her standing up front—her ponytail bouncing enthusiastically as she chatted happily with an older woman, her breasts pressing against the taut neckline of her bright tank top—his knees had almost buckled and he had to stop himself from calling out. It had only been two months or so, but it felt like he was seeing a long-lost love. And then when she’d touched him. Even focusing on Aunt Gladys serving meatloaf in her swimsuit didn’t seem to do the trick; if she hadn’t sent them both tumbling over, he would’ve been fully hard in moments.

Not that the intensity of the class had been bad. In retrospect, it couldn’t have happened any other way. If it hadn’t been electric, explosive, exhilarating, he would’ve questioned everything he’d spent the last two months thinking about. But it did throw him off a bit. He didn’t feel prepared to stay and talk with her afterward as he’d planned. He couldn’t even remember what he’d planned to say to her.

And so as soon as savasana was over, he’d left, sneaking out the door shielded by a trio of young men in basketball shorts. He didn’t even risk changing in the office bathrooms, and instead went right outside in his yoga shorts, any embarrassment at his outfit trumped by his desire to get somewhere he could think. Unfortunately, his hotel was more than 20 blocks away, and the September air had taken on a decided chill. He found a coffee shop, ordered an espresso, and sat down by the window.

He’d spent so many nights in Bali playing out this day in his head. He’d pictured Adele’s face, imagined touching her hair, saying his part, kissing her lips. It had all seemed so simple in his fantasy version, but the real world contained infinitely more complicated and powerful emotions. Suddenly he was filled with doubt: was she even happy he was here? Sure, they’d shared that moment of laughter on the floor, but who knew what she was thinking now that the moment had passed. Had he made a horrible mistake? He’d literally traded white sand beaches and endless sunshine for gray skies and constant drizzle, had quit an incredibly lucrative job, had flown halfway around the world for a woman he hadn’t even known existed six months ago.

But the espresso was good. He sipped it slowly, gazing out the window at the people passing by, and tried to clear his mind. Eventually, it occurred to him how insanely stupid he was being. Sure, he’d done a bunch of things of questionable wisdom, but he’d done them; he couldn’t take them back. Doubting his course of action before seeing it through to the end was about the worst thing he could do. He was being a coward again. Immediately after, it occurred to him that he was sitting in a crowded café wearing a pair of black spandex shorts that left basically nothing to the imagination. Glancing around, he registered more than a few raised eyebrows and stifled giggles.

He tossed his disposable espresso in the trash and dashed out the door, breaking into a jog as he headed toward Adele’s office. His backpack slung over a shoulder, it occurred to him that his real pants were in his bag and he could have changed into them at the coffee shop.
Too late now
, he thought, picking up his pace. Within minutes, he was in front of Adele’s building. He paused for a moment, caught his breath, and then stormed into the lobby, waving at the doorman and heading straight to the elevator, straight up to the 11
th
floor, straight to Adele’s office (he’d asked the receptionist where she sat when he’d come in the first time).

Three breaths, then he knocked.

“Come in,” he heard her say.

When he opened the door, he was greeted by her back. She was gazing out the window, looking down. It took several moments for her to turn around. When she did, her face searched his for a moment, her eyes darting over him, as if verifying his existence. Glancing at his shorts, she broke into an enormous grin.

“So you’re the insane person running around Seattle in yoga shorts,” she said. “It kind of looked like you, but I couldn’t tell from up here.”

He laughed, grateful to feel some of the tension leave his body.

“Guilty as charged,” he said. “What can I say, I’ve lived in a world where flip-flops are formal wear for the past six years.”

She smiled back at him, said nothing.

“Danny—” she began, stepping toward him.

“Shh,” he said, cutting her off. “Hang on.” He stepped forward and pulled her toward him, not in a kiss, but in an encompassing embrace. She fell into his arms, letting herself be enveloped, and he felt something he hadn’t felt for as long as he could remember. It took him a few moments to identify it.

He felt home.

Then he began to feel something else—specifically, Adele’s breasts, her stomach, her pelvis, and knew he needed to pull away before he again lost the ability to say what he needed to say.

“Sorry,” he said, taking a half step back. “I just needed to do that.”

“No apology necessary,” Adele said, leaning back to perch on the edge of her desk. For the first time, Danny surveyed the room. If the size of and view from her office was any indication, she played a pretty important role at this place. He was impressed, though not surprised. “So,” she said. “You’re in America.”

“I am,” he said, feeling relief that the thick sexual chemistry they’d experienced in Bali hadn’t disappeared with the tropical heat. When he didn’t elaborate, she nodded her chin slightly and cocked an eyebrow, an invitation to go on. “I got back to the States a month or so ago actually. Was in Chicago for a bit. Got to Seattle yesterday.”

He paused. There was so much to say, he didn’t know where to start. He knew he’d planned this all out but it was gone now, his mind devoid of words. He wished she’d ask him some questions, get his brain working again.

“As I’m sure you can imagine, I have a lot of questions,” she said, as if reading his mind. He almost heaved a deep sigh of relief, but then she continued, “but I’ll save those for later. For now I just need to know why. Why are you here, Danny?”

He locked eyes with her, and the words came back.

“I felt different after you left,” he began. “I missed you, of course that was part of it, but it was more than that. More of a…a fundamental shift in how I viewed my life. It was crazy—I’d been living that life for six years, and it had its problems but they never bothered me at all really. I had the beach, the waves, nature. I had time to myself, time to read and surf and think and meet interesting people, I had a job that didn’t ask too much of me and let me work from anywhere in the world and paid the bills and then some. It was easy and simple and nothing more or less than I needed.”

He saw Adele’s facial expression shift slightly when he referred to his job in the past tense, but she said nothing.

“But then once you came, and then left, I don’t know,” he looked out the window, squinting at the gleaming sun finally peaking out from the morass of clouds. “It was suddenly like I needed more. My life wasn’t enough anymore. I didn’t just want passing friendships with whoever happened to show up—I wanted real friends. And to see my family more than once a year, to stop being so Goddamn scared of loving them as much as I do. And love. I didn’t want one-week or two-day flings with people visiting—not that I had many of those at all,” he quickly added, berating himself for putting his foot in his mouth, but Adele just smiled. “I wanted a real connection with someone, something that lasts, something with some actual meaning to it. Even if it means things end up the way they did with me and Nikki. It’s like my life priorities suddenly flipped. I don’t want to be safe and defensive and content anymore. I want to be scared and open and happy,
really
happy, like stupidly happy.” He looked at her, and she didn’t smile, but her face said so much more than a smile could. She looked like she understood. “And I knew I couldn’t feel that way there.”

“That’s a lot,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable taking credit for such big feelings,” she laughed a bit and looked down, thrusting her hands in the pockets of her tailored gray pants. It reminded Danny of the bashful manner she had the first night they met, at the resort restaurant.

“Well regardless of whether you take credit or not, I blame you,” he said, smiling wide so that she knew he meant it well. He cleared his throat and moved his gaze to the floor before continuing, “My job, too. I wanted a job that I wasn’t ashamed of. A job that I didn’t have to do with my eyes half-closed to avoid really looking at the results of my work. Y’know, maybe not saving the world or anything, but something that didn’t actively
hurt
people.” He felt his eyes fill with tears. “I’m really sorry, Adele. To you, of course, but I also want you to understand that I’m sorry to all the people whose lives my work made worse. I was just shoving my morals in the back of the closet because it made my life easy—that’s not an excuse, just an explanation—but now they’re out in plain view.” He glanced up, caught her eye, and saw her looking back with kindness. He didn’t know what forgiveness looked like, but this seemed like a good approximation.

“So I left, and then you quit your job and packed your stuff and hopped a plane back to the States?” She asked, folding her arms over her chest.

“Pretty much,” he said, laughing, and she joined his laughter. “Well, not exactly. I spent a few weeks thinking it over, and then a few more tying up loose ends and letting my knee heal enough to be able to travel.”

“Oh!” She sprung up off her desk. “I’m so sorry! Your knee! I totally forgot, how is it? Jesus, I wouldn’t have put you in half-moon pose if I’d known it was you!”

She’d stepped forward and was standing close to him again. She reached out to touch him, but let her hand fall.

“Don’t worry about it,” he waved her off. “I’m good as new.” She nodded, but stayed put where she stood. “So I got my Bali life all squared away, and quit my job, and found a new one—”

“Oh?” Adele said, one eyebrow raised to the ceiling.

“Yeah,” he said, “but we can talk about that in a minute. And then I ate one last nasi goreng and hopped on a plane and ended that era of my life. Went to Chicago to work with some physical therapists and sports med guys and see my family and stalk you online. Decided the best way to find you would be to come to one of your office yoga classes that you post about so frequently on your public Facebook profile,” he said, a sly grin coming over his face.

“You Facebook-stalked me?” She squealed, faux-outraged.

“Sure did,” he said, and took a micro-step closer. “I thought that a yoga class would be an appropriate place for our reunion.”

“Yeah?” She said. A puff of her hot breath touched his neck.

“Your letter,” he said, then trailed off, raising his hand to touch her arm.

“My letter,” she repeated. Her eyes were soft, her lips slightly parted.

“It’s the most meaningful thing anyone’s ever done for me. I want to be all of those things to you. I want to be savasana, and downward dog, and—“

“I appreciate the sentiment,” she said, raising one finger to his lips. “But I can think of some other poses I’d like to try first.”

He opened his mouth in protest, feeling like he should finish his profession, but then Adele slipped her slender finger between his lips. For the second time that day, his knees almost buckled.

He closed his eyes, tasting her salty skin, and slid his arm around to her lower back, pulling her close. As he sucked on her finger, she leaned her upper body backward slightly so that her pelvis pushed up against his. He’d grown hard almost instantly, and could feel himself filling the warm opening between her legs. She moaned, pulled her finger out of his mouth, and stood upright.

They locked eyes for a moment before she pulled him in for a kiss, her tongue taking the place of her finger. He fumbled blindly, moving her backward until they hit the edge of her desk, and then lowered her carefully down. She splayed her arms out behind her head, sending papers flying to the floor, and looked up at him.

“You want meaning?” She said, smiling slyly. “I might know where you can find it.”

She trailed two fingertips up her inner thigh.

“Oh man,” he murmured, leaning forward to unbutton her blouse. One button at a time, he worked his way down, kissing her bare chest as it revealed itself. Her skin was pearly white, an exciting contrast to the sun-kissed skin he’d seen in Bali, and he felt a thrill through his body at this foreignness. He moved down her abdomen, let his tongue circle her belly button, and then down to the top of her pants. As quickly as he could, he undid the buttons, sliding them down to the floor along with her lacy black boyshorts. There was no time to waste here. He pressed his mouth against her, flicked his tongue inside for a moment, then moved to her inner thighs.

“God,” she whispered, and he glanced up. She glanced down at the same time, propping herself up to meet his eyes. “Get up here,” she said, unclipping her bra and tossing it to the floor. Her breasts were, if possible, even more perfect than he’d remembered.

Then he was standing over her, straddled by her bare legs, looking down at her taut stomach, her small round breasts, her erect pink nipples, the smooth lines of her collarbone and gently sloping neck, her delicate and open face, her hair spread wild behind her, cascading over the back of the desk. Behind her, out the enormous window, the newly emerged sun had begun its descent and was beginning to tinge the sky with pinks and oranges, the horizon dotted with the reasonable skyscrapers of Seattle’s downtown. He stood still for a moment and took it in. This was what he’d left Bali for.