Playing for Julia (11 page)

“Put your legs around me, babygirl.”

I do it.  He begins to move in and out, slowly at first, then speeding up, thrusting into me faster and harder and deeper.  I give myself up to the sensations he is creating.  My pulse is pounding.  He speeds up, relentlessly, driving into me again and again, then I lose all sense of anything but us and what his body does to mine.

I know he can hear m
e panting, my breath shallow and fast.  He thrusts into me over and over.  I feel an urgent need building inside me.  I tighten my legs and he goes deeper into me again and again.  His breathing is heavy.  I feel him deep inside and I can feel my orgasm building.  “Ohh.  Ohh.  Ohh.”  I gasp.  He thrusts into me harder.

“
Now, babygirl. Now.”

I arch my back
, my legs fall away from him and go stiff; I thrust my hips up, my body tightening inside as I climax.  I feel like I am falling into pieces, consumed by the orgasm he has given me.

“Oh god, Austen” I gasp.
He has taken me somewhere I have never been before.  Oh yes…it feels so good…oh yes…oh yes...never stop…yes.  Two more thrusts into me and his body arches and he comes.  “Julia,” he gasps and he sinks down onto me.

I feel his face next to mine
, his skin smelling deliciously of salty sweat and cucumber soap. He lifts himself up on his elbows, his body pinning me to bed, and kisses me softly. I am utterly limp and smiling the smile of a satisfied woman.

“
Good?”

“
Yes.”  I answer with a sigh.  “It is always good with you.”

“Maybe I
can come up with something else for you.  Something new.”  He grins.

“Now?”

“Oh no. You’re going to have to wait.”

“
You like doing that don’t you?  Tease me and make me wait.”

“
Think of it as surprises, Julia.  You like surprises, don’t you?”

“Sometimes, if it’s a good surprise.”

For a fleeting second I think of recent surprises:  Eric—maybe not good, Dan smoking—maybe not good, Cathy and her resume—definitely not good, but Ali meeting Tony—good, and every surprise with Austen—very very good.  Except for Mirabelle.

Chapter Sixteen

“Wake up, Julia.”  I feel his hand gently shake my shoulder.  Then again. I open my eyes slightly, blinking, and see Austen sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed.  “We’re going to brunch.  Get up.”

I sit up, stretch and the sheet falls away from m
y naked body.

“
Woman, you are temptation itself—but not now. We’re supposed to meet them in 15 minutes.”

“Who?” I ask, scrambling out of bed.

“John and Emma.”

Twenty minutes and a very fast, very utilitarian shower later, I’m dressed—
blue jeans and the saffron yellow Indian tunic with a camisole underneath—unlike Ali I’m not going to try to look almost naked in public—and we walk into the ‘usual’ restaurant right down the steep hillside from his house.

When we’re introduced I tell John I love his music.  He likes that. 
I immediately like Emma, the blonde I saw with him on Friday night.  She used to teach, but for the last year has been living and traveling with John.  She is not his girlfriend.  She’s his fiancée.  They met through a mutual friend from college and are planning a wedding in San Diego, her home, in January.

The conversation over brunch rambles from the weather to music industry news to their upcoming tour. 
The record company has decided it is going to be broken up into two parts: one on the East Coast and the South.  Then a couple of weeks’ break.  Then the West.  Austen also mentions a music festival in early September in San Jose.

“How did the trip to the winery go?” John asks.

“It has potential, but I want to see what kind of money Sal wants.”

“I like the idea of investing in a winery
a lot better than those oil drilling limited partnerships.  At least with a winery, you don’t end up with nothing, a dry hole.  You can get your money back in bottles of wine and drink it.”  They both laugh.

Back at the house Emma and I talk about their wedding plans
: she’s planning a big white wedding.  I tell her a little about my job and my roommate. Emma tells me that Austen thinks it’s cool that I work for
Voices
. Austen opens a bottle of Sal’s wine, then another. The afternoon just flies by.

Parked outside the cottage
on Sunday night Austen kisses me softly then says:  “Why don’t you come over to Marin after work on Tuesday night.  I’ll pick you up and then drive you into the city Wednesday morning.”

I hesitate.

“A week is too long, Julia.”  There is longing in his face.

I feel the same way.
  I want to be with him more.

“Okay.  Call me Tuesday afternoon.”

* * *

I
walk into the
Voices
’ office on Monday morning with trepidation.  What’s going to happen today?  Immediately I learn from Susie that Cathy quit late Friday after a big shouting match with Eric.

“You missed a really
god-awful scene.  She argued with him about cutting back the Weekly Events section.  You wouldn’t believe what he did.  He laughed at her and told her there are a lot more important things than a women’s poetry reading in some little storefront art gallery South of Market. You know how well Cathy liked hearing that.  She shouted at him and accused him of being a chauvinist pig, among other things.  Then she quit.”

Oh my god, I think
, as I sit down at my drawing board and start working on the layouts.  What is Cathy going to do?  Where is she going to get a job?  Who’s going to edit Weekly Events?  I get the answer to one question when Dan arrives, cigarette in hand, an hour later.  He has just come from a meeting with Eric and has revised roughs for me.  There is not going to be a Weekly Events section in the next edition.

“Eric wants to see you in his office.  He’s going to ask you to take over Weekly Events
, Julia.”

“Oh no.”
  My shoulders sag.

“Julia, tell him ‘Yes’.  We discussed it and you’
ll be working for me for the rest of this week.  I have to have time to find someone to replace you—although four days isn’t really enough.  Trust me; it will be a good move up for you.”

“But I love my work here.  You’re
the best boss—“

“Go, darling Julia.  Your future awaits you right down the hall.  One other thing.  Tell him you need more space for Weekly Events.  After that scene with Cathy, I suspect he’s more
amenable to giving that section more space.  And there will be a raise in it for you—I insisted upon it.”

“Thank you, Dan.”

Oh, good, more money.  Maybe I can start thinking about buying a real bed.  Or more clothes. Or start rebuilding my savings again.  Yes, it has to be savings—in case this job doesn’t work out, in case
Voices
fails and folds up. I need a cushion for that.

Later that afternoon, the fact-checker quits.  No big s
houting fight; just a simple letter of resignation.  Eric sends him on his way. Who’s next?

* * *

Ali is happy for me and, I think, a little envious. I know she wants work that’s more interesting and creative.  Austen congratulates me.  I call my parents and they are thrilled about my promotion.  I am flying high with excitement, but lurking underneath is the uncertainty and anxiety that all of us at the office are feeling.

Tuesday morning an associate editor resigns.  Another sim
ple letter, no screaming fight.

Susie tells me that there have been several phone calls from readers wanting to know where the Weekly Events section is.  They claim part of it is missing from their copy of Voices.
Oh my god, what is going to happen next week when there is no Weekly Events at all? Not my problem, I remind myself.  Eric’s the one who made that decision.

And no one still seems to know why David was force
d out and Eric brought in. I ask Dan and he just shakes his head and shrugs. I suspect he knows something, but for the rest of us it remains a mystery.

That evening I go to Marin with Austen and l
eave all the crazy chaos behind.  We make love, go out to dinner, then go back and make love again.  The more we make love the more I want him.  I think he feels the same.

* * *

Ali is proving to be serious about photography.  She bought a new camera today.  Her Instamatic is not suitable for the kinds of photos she wants to take now so she plunked down the money for an expensive Canon one. No more new clothes for her, even from our favorite thrift store, for a long time.

“
Tony’s friend gave me a good deal on it, but my savings are now almost down to zero,” she says, shaking her head. “I only bought one lens for it.” Then she brightens and sits up: Ali–the-Artist has emerged. “That will do for now.  The way I see things is more important than the lens anyway.”

“Wh
ere are you going to be taking photographs?”

“Union Square is not far from my office
and there are all sorts of people walking through it, so I think I will go there on my lunch hour and take photos—“

“And avoid lawyers.” I interrupt.

She grins at this reference to Drew, who called her a couple of times more, then stopped. I guess he got the hint.

“
Then this weekend I’m going out to Golden Gate Park.  There are always young women wandering around there listening to music. I can photograph them. And maybe I should go up to Washington Square.  I just have to get some shots of street fashions to show to that woman at
Rags
. They’re going to have to be good, though.  Really good. The man at the camera store was very helpful, but the more information he gave me the more I realize how much there is to know about photography and how to take good photographs.”

“You’ll do great, Ali.  You always do.”

“I hope so.  This has been a really big expenditure for me.  I hope it pays off.”

She pauses for a moment
and then asks:  “Would you be willing to be a model for me?  I could dress you—“

“No
.  I told you already.  No photos of me!”

Chapter Seventeen

Finally the three-day Fourth of July weekend is here.

“Another surprise for you,
Julia,” Austen had told me when he dropped me off at work Wednesday morning.  “Bring your swimsuit.”

Hmmm… the ocean
here is too cold for swimming, so we must be going to a lake somewhere, I speculate, as I pack clothes for the weekend in the oversize pink straw handbag I use as an overnight case.  Maybe we’ll go boating and swimming or maybe even water-skiing.  When I was in high school we went water-skiing on lakes every summer.  It was fun.

We head north once again over the Golden Gate Bridge, past Sausalito, past Healdsburg, and
after two hours on the highway we turn off at the Russian River, an old-fashioned family vacation area north of San Francisco.  As we go along the River Road I see small houses and a few log cabins tucked here and there among the tall redwood trees which line the narrow two-lane highway for miles.

Austen tell me a lot of hippies have moved into the area because the rents for year ‘round houses are so cheap.
  Most people don’t want to live there in the winter because it rains heavily for months on end. Our dark green cabin, however, is a weekend rental on the edge of the little town of Guerneville and the summer sun is shining.  The gravel crunches beneath the tires as he steers the Mustang next to it and parks.

John and Emma have already arrived and are sitting on the front porch in a patch of sunshine
, beers in their hands.

John raises his bottle of beer toward us:  “Breakfast of champions.”  We all laugh.

Inside, between the two bedrooms are a small living/dining room area and a tiny kitchenette.  The cabin must have been built in the 1940s. It looks clean, but smells a bit musty with an overlay of Pine-Sol.

“Okay,” Austen announces
as we carry our things into the cabin.  “Everyone put on your swimsuits.  We are going inner tubing.”

“Inner tubes?”  I ask. “Why not canoe
ing?  I saw a canoe rental place.”

“No canoe
s.” Austen says, grinning.  “I’d probably turn it over.  Come on, Julia, inner tubes are more fun.  We used to float around the river in them when I was a kid.  We can rent some at that place down the block.”

John
and Emma are enthusiastic about inner tubes, too, so inner tubes it is.

The man at the inner tube rental shop tells us that in winter the river is a raging torrent that frequently floods the whole area.  At this time of year
the water level is low, though.  We decide to stay near the banks, drifting slowly along in the sunshine in big fat black inner tubes, drinking beer. I feel as if I am gliding along a narrow canyon of green with canopy of blue above it.  We watch people set up picnics at tables and on blankets along the river’s edge. Kids splash in and out of the water. I hear fire crackers going off a little farther down river. Other people are floating around in inner tubes, too.

“I like this surprise.”  I tell Austen.

“I knew you would, Julia.  You’ll always have more fun with me.  You should know that by now.”  He grins.

“
Oh, so I am drifting down the river with Captain Humility, am I?”  I laugh and splash him.

He splashes back
, then tries to capsize me.  I paddle with my hands, not very effectively, to avoid him, then try to turn him over.  It doesn’t work—these fat inner tubes are surprisingly stable—so we float along some more.

John
paddles toward the center of the river and the swifter current carries him downstream, ahead of us.  We catch up to him a few minutes later and all four of us get into a splashing water fight.  Finally, after 8 miles of downriver drifting, dodging other people in inner tubes, we climb out at the tiny village of Duncan Mills where Austen had parked the Mustang before we went into the river upstream.

“Let’s get som
ething to eat and do it again.”

We
are all as excited as 12 year olds.  So we deflate the inner tubes, stick them in the trunk and go back up River Road to Guerneville.  After sandwiches at a small restaurant, it’s back to the river with the inner tubes re-inflated and another 8 mile drift westward to Duncan Mills.

“I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted,” I say as we deflate the inner tubes a second time.

“Yeah, you think you’re doing nothing, letting the river do all the work, but it’s not true,” Austen replies and closes the car trunk.  I pull on a T-shirt over my swimsuit.  The others do the same. The sun has begun to slide behind the hills and the air is becoming slightly chilly.

The shower in the cabin is tiny, b
arely big enough for one person.  I guess there won’t be any shower sex this weekend.  The lukewarm water trickles down onto my head and body, washing away the residue of river water.  Wrapped in a towel I fall asleep the minute I lay down on the bed.

“Julia, wake up
,” Austen whispers in my ear.

“I’m tired,” I groan.
  “Let me sleep.”

“Come on, baby.
Get up. Get dressed. You don’t want to miss the fireworks.”

Over dinner
—steaks, baked potatoes slathered in butter and big slices of apple pie a la mode—we talk about what else to do this weekend.  John wants to hike in Armstrong Woods, a nearby state park known for its ancient redwoods. Austen suggests champagne tasting at the Korbel winery about 10 miles back up River Road from where we are.  Emma says we could drive down to the coast—it’s only 12 miles—and visit Fort Ross, an old Russian settlement just north of the mouth of the river.  All of it sounds fun to me.

After dinner we walk to the river’s edge
. Unlike in the city, the night is very dark. The redwoods are like tall walls, blocking out most of the sky, making it even darker.  Stars show up only in a long, narrow strip above the river where there was a canopy of blue during the day.

Austen wraps his arms around me and holds me against him as we watch
fireworks sputtering up in bright flashes over the water in this dense darkness.  Most of the skyrockets soar up from in front of private homes.  I hear firecrackers all around us and see a few kids racing around with sparklers. I lean back against him and I realize how tired I still am and how good it feels to be in his arms.

Back at the cabin I slip under the
bed covers and again fall asleep instantly.

I feel Austen’s
mouth on my breast, kissing tenderly, then running his tongue around my nipple.  It must be morning.

“Good morning,” I
murmur.   I lay still, on my back, my eyes closed.

“Good morning to you, too, baby,” he
whispers as he moves his mouth and his attention to my other breast, kissing, gently playing with my hardening nipple with his tongue and teeth.  His hand glides along my body down between my legs.  Echoing him I run my hand down his body until I find his erection and begin stroking it.  It’s so hard on the inside, so velvety soft on the outside. His fingers circle me down there, again and again, and I can feel how wet I am. Then he thrusts two fingers inside me.  I squeeze his erection harder and stroke, up and down, faster, matching the rhythm of his fingers inside me. I squirm and my hips rotate against his hand.  His pelvis thrusts forward as I stroke him even faster.  I can feel my orgasm building. I am panting.  He is breathing heavily, then his breath shortens, his hips thrust forward again, as he comes, silently, his pelvis arching forward, creamy white spewing over my hand, onto my stomach, onto the sheets.  His fingers thrust deeper inside me—once, twice—and I gasp, my hips and legs stiffening as I climax—ohh, yes…release, release…ohh…ohh—and I am soft, limp all over.

We lay
on our backs, side by side, as our breathing slows.  He leans up, his head on his hand looking down at me and takes a corner of the sheet to wipe my hand and stomach.

“That was a lovely way to wake up.”
  I say softly. I run my fingers lightly along his cheek with its beautiful smooth skin and stubble of whiskers.

“I liked it, too, baby.
It’s fun playing with your body while you are still half asleep.”  He leans forward and kisses my mouth softly.   “Maybe we can play some more.”

In the early morning quiet, I begin to hear a
rhythmic squeaking sound.  It is coming from the other bedroom.  Austen and I look at each other and grin.  John and Emma are now awake, too.

After a big breakfast—bacon, eggs,
pancakes, sausages, plus strong coffee—we start our hike through the old growth redwood forest at Armstrong Woods Park. The massive trees are towering and awe-inspiring; a couple of them are over 300 feet tall and have been given names.  Wow, that’s a 30 story building.  The winding paths at the lower end of the park are soft and deep with redwood needles and leaf litter.  Sunlight filters down in patches through the high tree branches to pockets of green ferns on the ground. The air is still and silent.

The sign for the
narrow one-lane road that goes up to the top of the ridge where the park ends indicates that it is less than two miles to the top. We decide to take the steep switchback foot trail, instead of the road.  We see no one else as we climb up the hard, beaten trail; it feels as if we are the last four people on earth.  By the time we reach the top of the ridge, we have left the dark forest behind and I know we have hiked a lot more than two miles.  From there the views are spectacular.  As we nibble on candy bars that Emma brought along for us, we look down on the towering redwoods in the valley below. In the distance we can see the fog sitting offshore and creeping into the mouth of the river. It is mid-afternoon by the time we descend back to the park entrance where Austen left the car.

The sugar
buzz from the candy bars has worn off.  All four of us are absolutely ravenously hungry after that long hike.  At the same restaurant as last night we order huge early dinners and eat every bite.  It leaves me groggy and I can hardly wait to go to bed.  Austen has other ideas and we make love, then drift off to sleep.

Sunday we decide to pass up Fort Ross and Korbel
champagnes and go back on the river in inner tubes once again. It’s playtime on the river. We are like four kids who can’t get enough of a fun ride at a carnival.

“Thank you for this weekend,” I tell Austen as he parks in front of our little cottage back in the city.  “
That was more fun than I’ve ever had in my life.”

“I’m glad you liked it, baby.”

He pulls me toward him and kisses me deeply, passionately, then stops.  “We’re on the verge of public indecency again.”  He grins.  I get out of the car and watch him drive away.