The Sand Trap (31 page)

Monica had to laugh when she looked into the
hallway and beyond to the combined living room and dining room.
There was nothing there except the centre island bolted to the
floor.

“Go look at the rest of the empty rooms
while I uncork the wine I can see you have in your purse.”

Monica laughed again and reached into her
purse and pulled out a 1996 Argentinian Malbec. Gord looked at the
label. “Ah, the perfect pairing for Steak and Kidney pie.” He
walked over to the kitchen counter to get the corkscrew while
Monica went exploring. He poured two glasses and joined Monica as
she was looking into the main floor bedroom that was empty except
for the king size mattress that rested on the floor and was still
unmade from the previous night.

“Quite the housekeeper I see,” she offered
as she took the wine and walked over to the bed. She suddenly
turned around as if she had just thought of something. “But show me
this music stuff that you are constantly talking about.”

Monica saw right away that the basement was
a different place than anything upstairs. It was a large open area,
the size of the whole 1200 square foot footprint of the two-story
house. The stairs came down at one end of the room and immediately
opened to a vista of electronic equipment and instruments. The
windowless wall furthest from the stairs was a solid panel of
amplifiers and tape decks and mixers and other electronic items she
could not identify. Some even had old-fashioned tubes. Two large
pedestal speakers formed parentheses to the whole set up. A kitchen
type table was set up in front of the wall with an iMac on it that
was connected with various umbilicals to one amplifier, or whatever
it was, in the middle of the wall. One of those large oversize
chesterfields that were popular in the early eighties was situated
where she assumed was the sound apex, exactly in the middle of the
wall’s width and fifteen feet away from the wall of electronics. On
the right side of the space between the chesterfield and the wall
of electronics was a tall stool framed by two instruments, one an
electric type guitar, also connected to the amplifier and the other
an old fashioned stand up bass, the kind you would see in a
symphony orchestra. A music stand sat in front of the stool and a
set of Beats headphones hung on the corner of the stool back. All
of this occupied half of the room furthest away from the stairs.
The other half of the room had nothing in it but a large mat, the
kind that you used to pull out onto the floor in high school gym
class.

“Very interesting!” she exclaimed as she
surveyed the room. “You’ll have to explain some of this for
me.”

What was most interesting to her was not the
mystical mix of electronic devices but the impeccable order to the
place. Unlike the upstairs, it was clear that each item had its
place. Wires were coiled and tied. The table was neat and ordered.
The chesterfield cushions placed like they would have been in the
showroom when they were bought. The gym mat was clean and shiny. No
male sweat smell anywhere that she could detect. The only anomalous
fixture in the room was the half empty bottle of Bushmills and the
totally empty glass sitting on the floor beside the stool and the
electric bass.

“Most of the electronic stuff is old and
pretty much redundant today. I don't know why I keep the old stuff
around. Maybe it reminds me of happier days gone by. I don’t know,”
Gord explained. “But I can do pretty much everything I want to do
today with that computer, a set of good headphones and the
instruments. Even the old stand up bass is just for nostalgia since
I can’t keep it in tune in Ottawa’s summer humidity. It’s just that
it was the instrument I used when I studied at the U of T.”

“Right, you had a music minor didn’t
you?”

“Yeah, but very minor. Other things took
over my interests.”

“I should have come with you when played in
some of those blues clubs. I’ll bet you’re good?”

Gord wasn’t sure if that was a question or a
statement.

“It’s funny. I am pretty good I guess. At
least no band ever objects to me playing with them. But I am not
keen on anyone I know ever hearing me play or coming to the clubs
where I play. Several years ago I used to play fairly regularly
with a group at that blues bar over in Hull that closed up last
year. Gail never came. For that matter she has never heard me play
in thirty years other than what she heard from upstairs of course.
I’m not sure it has ever even registered on my kids just how good I
am. That’s fine with me. My music takes me to a different place and
displaces from my head the other things that are not so
pleasant.”

“I guess we all look for those places to
escape to Gord. The mat? I guess that is where you do your Tai Chi?
I have seen you do that on occasion. I remember time in Guangzhou
where you joined a group of old ladies in the park at 6 am! I could
see you from my hotel balcony.”

They wandered a little bit into the room and
Gord absently fingered the stand up bass. “Yeah, I remember…you
teased me. Asked me if I was looking to get some action. ‘How were
my pick up lines in Mandarin’?” you asked!

They both laughed.

“Gord, I’ve quit the university as well,”
Monica suddenly announced.

“Does that have something to do with the
fact that after eight years of working together you decide to come
and visit me at my house? It was not a coincidence we met at the
strip mall was it.”

“No,” was all she offered.

“No, what? No, that isn’t why you are here?
Or no, it wasn’t an accident.”

“Both.”

They stood looking at each other for a
moment, each wanting to say something but neither starting the
conversation again. Gord broke the spell by getting the wine bottle
from the table by the computer and refilling their glasses. They
clinked glasses and simultaneously took a sip. Monica wandered over
to the wall of equipment and pretended to be studying the dials.
With her back to him Gord felt a little freer to look more closely
at this woman who he had worked and travelled with for over eight
years. He didn’t suppose anyone would call her beautiful in the
fashion model sense. She was too short, only 5’4”, more athletic
than slender, more pear than hourglass, and definitely more cute
than gorgeous. But she was inexplicably attractive. She exuded
something – maybe the smile, the slightly upturned nose that turned
a little sideways when she laughed, and a definite self-assuredness
that attracted men like flies. Everywhere they went he watched men
try to hit upon her and on occasion she had used him as her pretend
boyfriend or date to fend off an unwanted charge. Of course they
had never linked up in any way. He assumed it had never entered her
mind to enter into anything other than a professional relationship.
If there was anything of a personal nature it was more
father-daughter than lover-boyfriend. He had even overheard her
tell a co- worker who suggested there was something between them
that it would be like sleeping with her father. He was only
slightly hurt at the comment, but quickly understood how right she
was. He was fifty-eight and she was twenty-eight. So despite his
occasional fantasy of what it would be like to sleep with her, they
never even came close to such a relationship. He assumed she was
here now for some fatherly advice as she embarked on some sort of
career change.

“Gord, there are things you need to know,”
she paused and he looked at her questioningly. “Like after today
I’m sure we will never see each other again.”

Gord was puzzled. “Look I know we have both
quit our jobs. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends Monica. We
have a lot of history under the bridge.”

She ignored his protest and put down her
wine glass and went over to the gym mat. “Hey, show me some Tai
Chi!” And she stood there in the middle of the mat in an awkwardly
exaggerated martial arts stance.

Gord laughed, put his own drink down on the
computer table and went over to where she was standing. “Ok. Well
first of all you need to get into the right starting pose." And he
showed her what to do.

“You mean like this?” she offered as she
sent a left hand finger jab into his solar plexus that he hadn’t
even seen coming despite his extraordinary senses. It was not hard
enough to hurt him or even cause him to double over, but he was
surprised.

“What the fuck?” he said to himself as he
watched her go into a perfect attack crouch.

“Come on old man. Show me what you’ve got!”
And she threw a foot sweep that this time Gord easily blocked.

They sparred for thirty minutes and for the
first time that he remembered, maybe the Korean janitor was the
exception, he discovered he was evenly matched. If it wasn’t for
his ability to respond faster than the normal person he was sure
she would have him covered in bruises by now. She was more skillful
in this unique form of martial arts than he was and only his
extraordinary reflexes saved him.

Finally, at one point they both just backed
off and she offered him a low bow. “Not bad Grandpa! I always
wanted to know how I would fare against your special ability.” She
didn’t give him a chance to respond or even be surprised that she
knew he had an extraordinary ability to slow everything down. If he
had thought it through he would have remembered that the only
people that knew he had special abilities were in the Agency. “And
there was something else I always wanted to do.” And slightly out
of breath herself she reached up to a breathless and astonished
Gord Salmy and kissed him. It wasn’t the kiss of a daughter, but of
someone much more hungry for a passion she had ignored for far too
long. The kiss started gently and broke off quickly but their lips
stayed close and when she went in for a second time her approach
was not hesitant – and neither was Gord’s response. He had not yet
processed all that was going on, but he was certainly processing
the kiss and his body’s reaction to her initiative, and the reason
and rationale that had kept them apart for eight years dissolved in
the instant.

After a moment or two they parted while
Monica started to take off Gord’s shirt.

“What about this sleeping with your Dad
shit?” Gord queried.

“Shut up. That was another thing you need to
know. I’m forty-two not twenty-eight.” And she continued to pull is
undershirt over his head and run her hands along a skinny but
well-toned upper body. She knew what she would find and she was
pleased. They kissed again and it was Gord’s turn as he fumbled
with her blouse and her bra and he turned his mouth and tongue to
the large nipples on very small, but very perky breasts and she
moaned in response.

They were still standing in the middle of
the gym mat with nothing on their torsos and they pressed their
breasts together as they kissed long, slowly and passionately.
Their tongues explored the inside of each other’s mouths and Gord
found the hotspots in Monica’s neck and shoulders that elicited a
gentle moan. He pushed her to the mat and undid her belt and with
some effort slid off her jeans. With her help the panties came with
the jeans and she was lying on the mat, legs apart while he knelt
above her, still in is own jeans, although the hardness of his own
excitement and anticipation was evident. He leaned over her naked
body and began to kiss and lick every exposed part he could get to;
first her ears and her neck and gradually back to the nipples where
he lingered for what to her seemed like eternity. He moved to
licking and kissing her firm stomach and he elicited a small giggle
when he stuck his tongue in her navel and then his tongue was
alternately caressing her very wet clitoris and her very firm
nipples. She was not unfamiliar with good sex as a string of
boyfriends would attest, but the orgasm that suddenly erupted was
like nothing she had experienced for many years. Most of her
orgasms had been from vaginal stimulation, unless she was doing the
stimulation, but Gord wasn't even inside her yet and she was
writhing under his tongue that would not quit. She shuddered as she
pulled his head up to her where they kissed and she tasted her own
juices. Her hands searched out his belt and jeans and together they
pulled off his jeans and she grasped his hardness.

“Your turn,” she whispered in his ear as she
pulled him down to her and guided him to the entrance of a very wet
vagina.

Where it went mostly limp.

She pulled on it with her hand until it was
semi-hard and tried again and it went half limp again. The third
time she expertly massaged him until he spurted over her hand and
her belly as Gord shuddered on the dividing edge of pain and
pleasure.

They lay beside each other on the mat, both
exhausted but with the passion subsiding.

“Now you know another reason why Gail
left.”

“When did it start?”

“I don’t know? We didn’t have sex very often
in the last few years and one time I just couldn’t get it up. I was
excited and horny and all the rest. It just wouldn’t work. So I
guess over the last few years I just found ways to satisfy her
without actually having sex.”

“So you would call what we just did not
having sex? You must have gone to the Bill Clinton school of sex
for wayward men.”

“No, I know that this was sex, at least I
hope you thought it was. It’s just that it is hard for a man to
think that women don’t lust for their hard cocks.”

“Did you try pills?”

“Oh yeah. Gail immediately referred me to
the golf channel ads. You know, the ads of attractive and fit
boomer couples whose relationship was miraculously saved by the
little blue pill. She figured it might save ours so she convinced
our doctor to get us some. I didn't know she even knew the golf
channel existed.”

Monica reached over and took his hand and
kissed it as she rubbed her cheek on his hand. “And did it
work?”