LITMIR.BIZ

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again in spite of what had happened. She sighed. It was so disconcerting to know that as she grew more attracted to him, he would only grow less attracted to her. The waitress came and they ordered drinks.

      Maryanne was becoming more composed.

      “Okay,” she conceded, pulling her thoughts together. “Although I am hardly upset, as you suggest, I will admit that I was thinking that the disenchantment has already begun. Just as I predicted that it would. Just as I knew it would. I never for an instant believed it would be otherwise. So why should I be surprised or upset?”

      “All because I looked at another woman?”

      She shrugged. “That and other things.”

      He looked at her sideways, confused. “Other things?”

      She was careful to phrase her words so that she didn’t give her true feelings away. She would discuss it with him—she found that she was intrigued by the prospect of doing so—but she would never let him see how much he had hurt her. She could never let him know that she’d been fooled by him, even for a single moment. That would be the worst thing she could do.

      “When I met you here tonight, every detail of our meeting was precisely the same as it was the first time, right down to how late I was.” Except that I worked ten times harder to impress you tonight, she added to herself. “I planned it that way so that I could compare how you behaved tonight with how you behaved back then. Suffice it to say, you were more considerate, attentive, and much more intrigued with me when I was a stranger. So yes, I would say that it’s already starting.”

      He stared at her, momentarily speechless. In the meantime, their drinks arrived. He sipped his thoughtfully.

      “Maybe this…thing that happens with guys isn’t what you think. Maybe it seems one way to you, but that’s not the way it really is. I know, for example, that I have been thinking about you nonstop all day. Every minute that I waited for you in the front of this restaurant tonight was pure agony. My feelings for you are stronger than a month ago, so the only thing I can think is that somehow my behavior is not showing you how I really feel.”

      “That may be true,” she said. “But what does it matter? I’m not a mind reader, so your behavior, not what you’re thinking, is what has an effect on me.” She suddenly remembered the way his eyes had moved over the woman earlier. It was precisely how they had traveled over her the first time he saw her. And now, for all of her efforts that day, he had yet to really look at her.

      “Well, I’ll just have to be more aware of it and try harder,” he said. He took another sip from his drink. But he was suddenly anxious. “Will you allow me that—the chance to become a better man?”

      She felt a tug at her heartstrings in spite of her unhappiness. Yet she couldn’t help wondering why men clung so tenaciously to women when their instincts were telling them to let go. And she couldn’t help being irritated with him, either. Why was he so intent on selling her something he had no ability to deliver? This could have been so much more fun if he had just allowed her to remain indifferent. But he had to push her for more and now she had stupidly allowed herself to fall for him. She found his disenchantment utterly despicable. And the worst part was, her disenchantment was the one thing that had the power to intrigue him all over again!

      She was once again struck by the utter hopelessness of relationships.

      She couldn’t bring herself to answer his question either way, but luckily the waitress came by at that moment to take their order. For dinner, she ordered another martini.

      With Dan once again the attentive pursuer, his eyes seemed to open suddenly and he really looked at Maryanne for the first time that night.

      “If this is how you dress for work,” he observed thoughtfully, “I think you should switch to a career in modeling.”

      She downed the rest of her martini in a single gulp and shrugged. “What, you think I look good tonight?” She said this as if it were the most absurd thing she had ever heard.

      Dan laughed. “Yeah, I think you look good. Too good.” He picked up her hand and carefully examined her perfectly manicured pink fingernails. “Mmm,” he remarked thoughtfully. “I don’t think they’re working you hard enough over there.”

      “Well, you know how it is,” she countered nonchalantly. His playful mood was catching. “Some of us make it look easier than others.”

      “I guess so!” he agreed emphatically. He turned to her hair, picking up a lock and examining it as he twirled it between his fingers. “And I would say that the air-conditioning in that place is set to the perfect temperature and humidity for hair. Just look at the condition of this curl!”

      She turned her eyes as if to examine it with him. “Humph,” she said, pretending to ponder the matter as if she had no idea that there were at least four different hair products forcing it to perform in such an exceptional matter. “I never noticed that before.”

      “Yeah. Those are some great working conditions you’ve got over there.” His attention now turned to her face. She watched his eyes as they took in everything from her delicately shaped eyebrows to her shimmering lips. “Great working conditions,” he repeated thoughtfully.

      While it delighted her to hear these things, every single word only served to prove that she had been right. But she only smiled.

      “I think I fucked up more than I realized,” he said quietly. And she could feel herself melting for him all over again in spite of everything. But the little voice inside her head cried, “Don’t! You’ll only make it end faster!”

      And she suddenly realized that it was not his fault or hers. It simply was. And she no longer wanted to talk about it. Why rail against what is? To accept things as they were was to truly live and experience life. To fight against those things was to prevent it. She looked at Dan with appreciation. The least she could do was accept him, and in order to accept him she must forgive him. And for the first time in her life she was able to accept and forgive herself, as well.

      “What are you thinking?” Dan asked her.

      “I was thinking that you look pretty good yourself.”

      “Well, unlike you, I actually had to work at getting presentable,” he joked. “Shaved and everything, see?”

      Maryanne laughed.

      They were back on good terms again, and they flirted and talked and laughed just like always.

      But even so, later that night, when it was time to go home, Maryanne felt like being alone.

      “Can I just come over and tuck you in?” he asked.

      “I don’t know,” she hedged. “I’m not sure I’m up for it.”

      “Listen,” he told her. “I really want to be with you tonight—no, it’s not about sex, I don’t even want sex—but I want to be near you…to hold you. Come on. Can I, please, can I, huh?” He began to whimper like a puppy until she relented, laughing.

      “Okay, maybe just for a little while.”

      And he was true to his word, simply wrapping her in a blanket of warmth as he snuggled up next to her in the spoon position.

      “Shhh,” he interrupted when she tried to move or speak. “I don’t care how much you beg or plead, you are not getting sex!” She laughed, all the more amused because his raging erection was conspicuously poking into her back. “Now just settle down and go to sleep.”

      But all of a sudden Maryanne didn’t want to go to sleep. She wanted Dan. And she was in a dangerously indulgent mood regarding wants; it was a mood to not only satisfy those wants but to surpass them.

      She wiggled her backside into him enticingly and smiled when he groaned.

      “Come on,” he begged. “Play fair.”

      She moved against him again, more persistently this time.

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