BEDTIME STORIES 6: BUTTERFLY KISSES

By DixieHellcat

My phone rang as I set my suitcase down. I glanced at the display, grinned and answered. “You must be psychic,” I said. “I just got into the hotel.”

On the other end, Clay giggled. “Great minds think alike. How was your flight?”

“As good as it could be, considering I was flying away from you and our daughter.” I sighed. “I miss you both already.”

“We miss you too, Ari. I kinda thought since you were goin’ home, it might be easier for you.”

“St. Louis isn’t exactly home. It wasn’t when I lived here, and it definitely isn’t now. Home is where you and Dede are. Although it will be nice to see the old town. If I have time, I’ll call the Butterfly House and see if anybody I worked with is still there. How sucky is it that I have to be here when you have to be in LA?”

“I know, baby, but these meetings couldn’t wait if we want to get the concert DVD out quickly.”

“And we do want that. Heaven forbid Clay Nation blame me for holding it up!”

Clay snorted. “I doubt that. My fans love you. Stay busy then, and maybe you won’t get too lonely.”

“Exactly what I’m planning. Every TV station in town has me booked for an interview, I think. I see lots of midday cooking and public affairs programming in my future. The city claims me, whether the feeling is mutual or not. And I want to do some shopping for something other than maternity clothes. There’s this great little shop, Laurie Solet…it’s in the suburb of Clayton, believe it or not. I used to love to window shop there in my past life, when I couldn’t afford a button on a dress in the place. They get wonderful designer stuff from all over, and I’ll bet I can find something there that’s perfect to wear to the movie premiere.”

“Where for a change I get to be your arm decoration, as pitiful a one as I may be. Did you ever imagine when you started writin’ that first book, it’d end up a high-dollar Hollywood golden child?”

“Never. Much less that I’d be attending my own premiere escorted by People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. But then, that’s kind of what brought us together to begin with, isn’t it? The fact that neither of us could quite process what was happening to us, back when we first met?”

“True,” Clay agreed, and we sat in silence, thousands of miles apart, but joined as ever at the heart.

“Sounds quiet there,” I said after a moment. “The diva must be asleep.”

“Yep. Got her tummy full, played a little count-fingers and tickle-toes, and out she went. She’ll probably sleep right through my meeting.”

“You certainly won’t have time to be lonely, between being businessman and doing daddy duty.”

“I like doin’ daddy duty,” he replied, and I could hear him smile. “Gives Deborah Faye and me time to get better acquainted. I learn somethin’ new about her every day. Like, we found some old fifties groups singin’ on A&E and she liked that a lot. The rap on MTV, not so much.”

I laughed. “She’s already forming strong preferences, huh? Sounds like her father.”

“Hee hee…we also paused on CNN, because they were rerunnin’ your interview.”

“Were they? Well, bully for them. Oh, I shouldn’t be so snarky about it. I was actually fairly happy with that one. At least they did remember to ask about the new book as well as the movie.”

“Oh, yeah. The new book. That would be the one about the undercover agent and the old mobster’s beautiful and frustrated young trophy wife. Has it occurred to any reporters yet to ask why whenever that subject comes up, you get this big ol’ pie-eatin’ grin on your face that a linebacker with a crowbar couldn’t pry off?”

“No, and I’ll thank you not to suggest it to any of them! Thanks a lot, Aiken. Now during the rest of my interviews I’ll turn as red as those beets you hate! You’d better watch your mouth, or I’ll start casually mentioning that gosh darn it, I forgot to give you full credit for the really, really intense research you helped me with.” He yelped, and I snickered. “Pie-eating grin? Is it that obvious?”

“Well, it is to me. And it makes me smile to see it. And it makes me miss you that much more. We haven’t had that much time to be together since the baby came, and I’m only human. I’ve almost resorted to readin’ that book over again.”

I agreed, and we talked a few minutes more before he had to go. I sat in the quiet hotel room, reminded by his words that this was the first prolonged period of time I’d had to myself in nearly eight months. Then I ambled over to the window and gazed out at the skyline of downtown St. Louis, still mostly familiar despite a few years’ absence, with the famous Arch rising above. Being back wasn’t a bad feeling. I had had a few good times here, and one spring weekend that transcended mere good times, to change the direction of my life. Funny, how it had all begun with a phone call…

+++

That January of 2003, everybody I knew seemed addicted to a pathetic TV show called American Idol. “It’s lame!” I declared to my best friend Trini when she called as usual to try to update me and get me hooked. “A disgrace to television, as disgraceful as that is to begin with.”

“Oh, come down out of your literary ivory tower, Ari! TV started this way. Ever hear of Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour?”

“At least, if I recall what I’ve read, it had a real band. This is freakin’ karaoke!!”

“Whatever. It’s fun, and you’d like it. I even know which guy you’d like. He’s like the king of the geeks, but he has the most beautiful voice. I taped it. Remind me to show you the next time you come over.”

I didn’t remind her, but it didn’t matter; she pulled out the tape anyway, and rewound it to the initial episodes of the show. Resigned to suffering through, I was affected in a way I never could have imagined. One of the two judges, a Brit who Trini assured me was an original asshole, seemed about to ask if there was a math convention nearby, and this skinny redheaded boy with thick glasses and ill-fitting clothes had gotten lost and ended up at the singing audition by mistake. When the geek opened his mouth, though, the voice that emerged brought tears to my eyes and broke my heart. “Oh, Trini…this is awful. I couldn’t bear to watch it. Don’t you see? Sure they’re taking him, but to be the scapegoat, the court fool, the butt of their jokes. He’ll sing, with that voice that sounds like an angel loaned it to him, and they’ll arch their eyebrows at the camera to let the masses at home in on the joke, and ask where his pocket protector is. Nope. Can’t do it. Way too depressing. Things are finally looking up for me, and I don’t need anything to drag me down.”

She started to make some smart crack, but I guess she could see I was really troubled by what I had seen, so she turned the VCR off instead. ‘You really think this publishing thing is legit?”

“Uh, yeah.” True to my hard-learned form, I hadn’t told a soul about submitting my novel until I had an acceptance letter in hand and had thoroughly scoped out the sender. I got very tired very fast of being made fun of by people who could just as easily have supported me. “I checked the publisher out, emailed them, talked to them on the phone. Yes, they are legit, and they want my book, to put out in the fall.”

“I hope you’re right. Don’t quit your day job. I’d hate to see you disappointed.”

The hint of condescension in her voice, as well-meaning as her concern no doubt was, made me want to choke somebody. ‘You sound like my parents.” Not that I didn’t love them, but we did not get along. They had never understood me, or, as far as I could tell, tried very hard to. After they sowed their wild oats (they met at a Led Zeppelin concert, and I was named after a line in a Zep song), they settled in rural Missouri. And boy, did they settle. Compared to my three siblings, hearty corn-fed Nascar-loving kids, they had never figured out where the sensitive shy fat one who needed a back brace to grow up straight, who had only wanted to dream, had come from; and they took special care to douse my dreams in buckets of cold water whenever they got the chance. Of course, they saw it as introducing me to reality; or, more charitably, perhaps they only wanted to protect me. Whichever it was, I only endured it until I left for college, and I didn’t go back. I took my degree and my teaching certificate to the big city to find a job that would keep me fed and give me a little time to write. School jobs were short, but an education guide position at the Butterfly House, part of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, fit the bill. It was fun too, enough so that I had no intention of quitting my day job anytime soon, no matter how the hope of literary stardom beckoned.

+++

I had no idea what literary stardom would entail. The editor who had received my novel was highly excited about it, especially since, in a market where stories blending two genres were all the rage, I had managed to seamlessly meld elements of three. Obviously, not many science fiction-romance-murder mysteries crossed her desk. So while I proofread and tightened up my prose, she sent advance notice to all three fan communities. When we strategically leaked a few passages, buzz began to build at a startling rate, and by the end of summer, I had attended a half-dozen conventions and done two online chats. And the book wouldn’t even see the inside of a store till late September!

When it finally hit the bookstores, I hit the road, after begging leave from work. I signed my name more times in the next few weeks than I thought possible. The tour was a whirlwind, from here to there with hardly a breath in between. Part of me loved it, while part was frankly unnerved.

Then the most incredible news of all came: a phone call to say the book would be on next weeks’ New York Times paperback best seller list. The next thing I knew, this slightly dazed zoo docent was in a Manhattan hotel room, getting ready for a ride to Times Square to appear on Good Morning America! I settled into the cab with a wondering grin, and stared out the windows at the city that really doesn’t ever seem to sleep.

New York didn’t sleep, and neither had I, at least not much the night before, but I was eager to go. After meeting with staffers who explained how the short interview segment would go, I retreated to their green room. I hoped my parents were watching; I’d called to tell them, but honestly, I wasn’t sure they believed me. They still seemed to think I was being scammed by someone, for some nebulous reason they couldn’t pin down. With a mental shrug I tried to let it go, and buried my face in a worn notebook full of scribbled ideas for future novels. (Yes, I write my first drafts in longhand. Call me old-fashioned, but I think better with pen in hand than staring at a monitor. Besides, it’s much less cumbersome to carry a notebook to the laundry room than a computer.)

People came and went, but I paid little attention to my surroundings until the grumble of my stomach reminded me that in my excitement I’d only kept down a glass of milk that morning. I put my notes down and looked around, spying manna from heaven on a nearby table in the form of a plate of donuts sitting beside a Krispy Kreme box. I tried briefly to talk myself out of it; having been a fat child, sometimes I went too far to the other extreme as an adult, but the siren song of the donuts was too powerful to resist. As I approached, I saw the selection had been picked over. Only a couple of chocolate frosteds, some peanut covered, and a lone original glazed remained. The plain one being closest, I reached for it, at the same instant another hand did. Startled, I yelped, and the donut slipped from my fingers and rolled across the floor.

Great. All I needed to do was dirty up ABC’s facilities. I bent over to clean it up and yelped again when my head connected with a thunk with something—the head of the other hungry visitor, who had also dropped to the floor to pick up the mess. “Ow!” a male voice said. “Oh gosh ma’am, are you okay?”

I looked up, and into a pair of remarkable green eyes. A writer to the core, my first impulse was to search my brain for a word to describe them. Emerald? Not quite that bright. Jade? Close. Malachite? Too dark. Aventurine? Not bad, especially given the sparkle they held despite their owner’s obvious sleepiness. Lids hung heavy over them like drapes at windows of mystery, fringed by the kind of long lashes that make women sometimes curse men. “I’m fine,” I returned, and laughed the collision off. The young man had red-gold hair, fashionably spiked, and a generous mouth that stretched into a tentative answering smile at my amusement. ‘I was too darn eager for a snack. You go ahead.”

To my gesture toward the table, he shook his head. ‘I can’t,” he replied with a look of disappointment down at the fallen donut. ‘I’m allergic to nuts and chocolate. That’s the only one I could’ve had.”

“Oh no!” I cried. He was thin enough, and I hoped I hadn’t deprived him of a meal. ‘Will you be around for a while? Do you work here at the studio, I mean, or what? I have to be on the show for a few minutes, but I’d gladly buy you breakfast afterwards to make up.”

“No, I’ve got to leave here and go straight over to MTV, I think, and then another talk show and…” He frowned as if trying to remember his schedule, and shook his head again. This time, he looked a bit overwhelmed by what he was saying, a feeling I was quickly coming to appreciate. ‘It’s okay, I’ll live. So you’re on the show today too? What’re you in for? Oh goodness, I made it sound like bein’ in jail, didn’t I?”

His embarrassed flush and his Southern accent were absolutely enchanting. I introduced myself, thrilled to simply say, “I’m a writer.”

“Wow. That’s cool. I hate to write. No offense I mean, but my experience with it is limited to writin’ ‘I will not say my cousin’s ponytails look like pony’s tails’ five hundred times as punishment.” I had to laugh. “Arianne. That’s a beautiful name.” He put out a big paw. “Clay Aiken. Nice to meet you.”

“Clay Aiken…” I puzzled. His hand folded around mine, strong yet soft and warm. “That sounds familiar. Where would I know you from?”

“Well, I was on this show called American Idol. I came in second this year.”

Now I was really confused! Trini had become quite fond of the singing geek and mentioned when the contest ended that he had narrowly missed winning. This handsome guy, all diamond-cut cheekbones and lush mouth and above all those hypnotic eyes, certainly wasn’t the nerd I recalled seeing. “No, I must not be thinking of the right show…Sing something,” I said, suddenly inspired.

He giggled like a true redneck, and then softly sang, “You give your hand to me, and then you say hello, and I can hardly speak, my heart is beating so…”

Oh God. That voice. There was no mistaking that angelic voice. “Yeah, that’s, um, wow. Yeah. I saw you on there once, at the start of the show. I didn’t recognize you.”

“Sometimes I don’t recognize me either,” he replied wryly. I realized he was still holding my hand, about the time he evidently realized it too and let go, leaving my fingers feeling strangely bereft. We chatted for a few minutes, long enough to find we had more in common than I would have thought, two ordinary people thrust into the spotlight. When an assistant came to fetch me for my interview, I had a brief attack of fright, but Clay was reassuring. "I’m sorry we couldn’t have breakfast—but listen!” He grabbed a napkin from the table and scrawled on it. “Here’s my cell phone number. You give me yours, if you want to, and if we can work it out, would you like to have dinner?”

I floated through the interview, and didn’t even begin to come back down till I was whisked away to my hotel to catch my breath before two book signing parties. Sadly, I didn’t get to stay to see and hear Clay, but Trini had promised she’d tape the show so I could see if I looked like a complete idiot, so maybe she had gotten the whole show. By this time, I was worrying I probably had looked like a complete idiot. I even phoned my parents to ask. There was no answer. Maybe they were busy. More likely, they knew who was calling and didn’t choose to answer. Neither of them had ever been any good at admitting they were wrong. I sighed, set the sadness aside, and dove into the madness of the day.

And mad it was, to me at least: a shy bookish gal being limo’d around the Big Apple, greeted by throngs of eager readers who looked at me with awe for doing something that came as naturally to me as breathing. It was as unreal to me as any scene you would read in Verne or Tolkien. By afternoon, when I was fairly dazed, my phone beeped at me. “Hello, Arianne? This is Clay Aiken, y’know, we met this morning?”

“I think I recall running into someone by that name,” I teased, to cover the leap of my stomach at the sound of his voice. “What’s up?”

“I talked to the people from RCA, and the management company and all, and I think I can make it to supper if you still want to get together.”

Of course I wanted to! I had no evening appearances, thankfully; so back at my hotel, I primped. It didn’t do the image in the mirror much good that I could see, but as my grandfather used to say, any old barn looks better with a new coat of paint. I reminded myself this wasn’t exactly a date, but looking decent still made me feel more confident. Then at the end of a cab ride, there Clay stood, waiting at a side door of his hotel, in a dark suit, the top button of his white shirt undone. He looked like the epitome of cool, and I took a deep breath before I got out, praying I didn’t mess something up. I didn’t have a lot of social experience to begin with, and dinner at a ritzy hotel with a gorgeous man was totally outside the realm of familiarity.

All went well though, despite feeling chaperoned by Clay’s bodyguard Jerome, a surprisingly gentlemanly mountain of a man. Not that I needed chaperoning; geek girls don’t get much action. As we talked, I was silently amazed to learn Clay still saw himself as dorky as the day he’d walked into that audition in Atlanta, and was baffled as to why women suddenly were so enamored of him he couldn’t use the front door of a hotel anymore. By the end of the evening, we were laughing together like old friends and kindred spirits. I even summoned the nerve to present him with a copy of my book that I’d signed to him. “To Clay—let’s bump heads again sometime.” I tensed as I handed it over, fearful it would seem too risqué, but he screeched with laughter, and then gave me a signed copy of his CD.

When I got back to my hotel, I called Trini, and got an earful. “You did not freakin’ tell me you were gonna be on with Clay!!!” she yelled.

“Hey, what did I know from Clay? I was no fan!” I protested, the operative word being was. Later, I listened to the CD he’d given me, and resolved to borrow Trini’s American Idol videos when I got back to St Loo. She was more than happy to enable my ‘Clayversion’ as she called it, and brought the tapes to work with her the next day for me.

The Butterfly House was buzzing over my TV turn, though not all the buzz was positive. There isn’t much to be done about jealousy, though, so I ignored it. Trini handed over her precious tapes while she excitedly dramatized to several other staff my encounter with Clay (at least my encounter at the studio, which was all I’d told her or anyone). “What, Ari, you won’t give a real guy like me the time of day and then you hang all over some flake that got lucky enough to get his face on TV?” sneered Jared, a supervisor notorious for his workout ethic, his sexist behavior and his general bad attitude. “Look at him. He’s such a sissy.”

The retort popped from my mouth as though it had a life of its own. “Funny, he wasn’t last night.”

His mouth fell open, and mine nearly followed suit. I certainly didn’t have any firsthand knowledge of Clay’s personal life, and no stake in taking any position, other than liking him, and disliking Jared’s implicit assumption that his judgment was the only valid one, and made a person, a total stranger, somehow of less value. Maybe that was what instantly pissed me off; or maybe it was simply that he kept hitting on me for no other reason than I was a female coworker he hadn’t screwed yet. I folded my arms and just looked at him. Not gonna explain myself, jackass. Draw your own conclusions.

It wasn’t as if I had a reputation to worry about; no one I worked with knew a thing about my nonexistent personal life. Having been justifiably infamous in college as the foulest-mouthed virgin in the history of the university, though, if this clown wanted to match words, I was more than equipped to oblige. Instead, he just sputtered and slunk away. Trini grabbed my arm. “Ari, what was that supposed to mean. You didn’t—I mean, you and Clay—you didn’t—“

A childhood of ridicule had taught me, among other things, the quintessential poker face. “No, we didn’t, but even if we had I’d never tell you.”

+++

The Idol tapes were a revelation. It was like standing in the lab at the Butterfly House and watching a once homely little bug burst from its chrysalis and unfold glorious wings. The near-miss quality was spellbinding. There were moments I had to admit couldn’t have been more perfect if they had sprung from pen onto paper, truth more incredible than fiction. Even knowing the outcome, watching the Wild Card show for the first time made me hold my breath. And then, on his last chance, Clay chose a song as pleading and evocative of the moment as Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me? I laughed out loud in disbelief, and declared to my living room, “You couldn’t make this stuff up!”

Over the next days, I watched the tapes through several times, and finally begged Trini to get her cousin who worked at a camera store to make me copies. I even made a point of setting my VCR the following week, when I heard Clay was scheduled to appear again on Good Morning America. I had to work late that day though, to make up paperwork that had gotten behind during my author-ly jaunt to New York. I was beginning to get the feeling the zoo’s governing board was not too thrilled with the attention I was getting, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. Quitting still wasn’t an option, with only one book published, even if it was a good success. At my desk, I was pondering what to do when the phone rang. “Girl, you are so shuttle bound!” Trini fairly shrieked.

“Come again?”

“When you hear what Clay just said about you—on national TV—omigod—“ She had to stop. I was afraid she would hyperventilate, and more afraid of what had happened while my back was figuratively turned. “Oh yeah. You are definitely shuttle material.”

She finally explained what shuttle material was, which calmed my nerves considerably; I seriously doubted any of Clay’s fans would think me a potential match for him, whatever he had said. The problem was, I couldn’t get Trini to tell me what he said! I fumed all the way home, praying the VCR had worked. It did, and I was stunned. When Diane Sawyer asked Clay what he’d been doing lately he burst out, “Reading! Remember that girl—“ he pronounced it gurrl, which I found inexplicably adorable—“that gurrl who was here the day I was last week? Arianne, who wrote that book about the policeman and the alien girl?” Ms. Sawyer thoughtfully supplied my full name, and even the title of my book, which made me hope maybe she had read the signed copy I gave her! “Yeah! She gave me a copy, and even signed it to me. And I’ve read almost the whole thing this week, in between waiting in backstages and what have you. It’s amazing. I don’t know how people think up such wonderful stuff. She makes it all seem so real, you forget the gurrl in the story has green skin and blue hair and twelve fingers and toes and four, um, you know…” The gesture he made with both hands in front of his chest needed no translation. Diane Sawyer openly snorted. So did I.

I watched as the legendary Clive Davis surprised Clay with a plaque to commemorate two million copies of his CD shipped to stores in the first week. As the Clay on the screen laughed incredulously and bit his lip and looked skyward, I fished out the wrinkled napkin with his cell phone number on it. He probably changed it every week or two, but it was worth a try. Expecting at best a voice mail, I was startled when he answered. “Uh, Clay! Hi. This is Arianne. We met last week, I gave you my book—“

“Oh gosh, hi! I finished it this afternoon on the plane. You are amazing! I mean it. Where do you come up with stuff like that?”

I’d already heard that question enough times to steal a line from one of my literary idols who used to tell people he sent off to a post office box in Poughkeepsie or someplace equally obscure for his ideas; but I couldn’t get cranky with Clay. “I don’t know, really. They just come sometimes. Thank you for what you said on TV. That was nice of you, and you didn’t have to do it.”

“But it was true! Every word of it. I don’t see how you do it!”

We talked for two hours or more, and after the first little while, very little of the conversation actually revolved around my writing. He talked about his crazy schedule, and I alluded to my employer’s unease with me. Clay admitted he didn’t have an answer for either of us, but he was certain God would provide. I’d drifted from my childhood of strict church-going, but his simple and sane words rang true to my heart.

“I’m so glad you called,” he said near the end. “I guess it sounds bad of me, or selfish, but…this is all so new, and I don’t have anyone to talk to who is in the same boat, and understands. You are, sort of, and you do. I like talkin’ to you! Call me again sometime, if you want to, and you have the time. Or I might call you, so be prepared!”

I laughed that off, but he did call, the following week, and we talked every few days after that. He was a godsend. My friends supported me and cheered for my success, but they couldn’t grasp the crazy confusing downside of becoming somebody. Clay could, so clearly that I felt guilty at times unburdening myself of my little conflicts. He always listened, though. Even when he needed reassurance himself, he reached out to reassure me, and I came to adore that in him.

He called from New York on Thanksgiving Day, while my friend Roz and I were cooking up an ‘orphans’ Thanksgiving’ for ourselves and several other acquaintances who had no family nearby to eat turkey with. It was the first time I lied to him. He was so excited about riding in Macy’s Parade, an American dream come true, that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the unpleasant truth about myself. I can’t even remember now what I made up to tell him, to explain why I wasn’t at my parents’ house only a couple of hours drive away: something about them going to visit my brother in the Army, I think. What had really happened was that they had finally acquainted themselves with my novel. Whether one of them read it, or they got a report from someone else who had, I don’t know to this day, and probably never will. All that mattered at that time was that it utterly offended their conservative sensibilities, so much so that they practically disowned me. I cried a little, then went on, juggling my rising star and my earthbound day job like a super-heroine with a secret identity.

I was booked for a different convention nearly every weekend, sci-fi or romance or mystery readers, and after the next one, a strange man I met there began to follow me. He showed up at my job, at my hairdresser’s, even outside my apartment complex. I found out from the con management who he was, but the police were no help. Regretfully, they informed me they couldn’t do anything unless he did something. Like knifing me, apparently. Fat lot of good that did. I hated to face the fact, but I, so accustomed to self-reliance, was helpless, and starting to panic. I could almost hear my parents pointing out that I’d brought it on myself for writing filth, so I’d better be prepared to figure out how to get out of it myself, just the way they had on the rare occasions I’d gotten into trouble as a kid. Finally, it occurred to me to ask Clay’s advice. He’d never been stalked that I knew of, but he might know someone who had, and how they had resolved the situation. After he hit the roof, and then apologized for his ‘Aiken temper’ (which, so long as it wasn’t turned on me, I found surprisingly attractive), he said he’d talk to some people, and assured me things would get better.

Things didn’t get appreciably better right away, though. In fact, they seemed to get worse, because in a day or two there were two guys following me. The second was a burly swarthy man who made no pretense of hiding his presence in my apartment parking lot, or anywhere else I was. In another day or two, though, the weirdo from the con vanished, and only the newcomer remained. On the fourth morning that he bade me a pleasant good morning around a mouthful of biscuit as I headed to my car, I exploded. I demanded to know who he was, what he was doing, and whether he really relished the idea of getting that biscuit shoved up one of his orifices (my choice). His unexpected response was a longsuffering sigh, followed by “He said you’d probably do that sooner or later.” With that, he laid his biscuit aside, picked up a cell phone lying on the seat beside him and punched a button. After a brief exchange of words, he handed it to me.

“Hi, Ari! So you and Roderick have finally met. He’s a cool guy. Jerome recommended him. I think you two ought to get along great.”

“Clay? What are you doing?” I almost yelled.

“Nothin’ much. Just keepin’ an eye on you, and on that—that sack of crap that was botherin’ you. Rod made sure he understood if anything happened around you, anything, even if you broke a nail, we’d assume it was his fault, and act accordingly. And if he didn’t see Rod watchin’ you, it probably meant Rod was watchin’ him. Rod did that a few times, and the guy’s boss didn’t like it very much. I hear the guy’s lookin’ for another job now. Someplace out in Idaho, I think.”

My first impulse was to ream him out—how dare he get into my business, assume I couldn’t take care of myself—until common sense reminded me I couldn’t take care of myself this time. I couldn’t hire a bodyguard, or scare a freak out of town. So instead of shouting at him, I said in a small voice, “Why did you do that?”

“Huh?” His voice squeaked in incredulity. “What do you mean why? I couldn’t exactly come up there and beat the jerk up myself—not that I’m any good at beatin’ people up—but did you think I’d just sit around and let him scare you, or—or worse?”

Well, yeah, actually, I did, I thought but did not say. I had no reason to expect anything else. No one had ever gone very far out of their way to help me before, so I’d resigned myself to muddling through alone, as usual. Clay’s actions, or perhaps even more the crisp no-nonsense way he’d outlined them as though they were self-evident, left me stunned, and all I could manage was a lame thank you.

Rod stayed close for the next week or two, until the coast appeared clear, much to the relief of my superiors, who were plainly displeased at the idea of my needing protection. The cyclone of Clay’s burgeoning stardom had caught him up, and I didn’t talk to him much for a few weeks. Every time I turned on the TV, though, there he was, accepting awards, graduating from college, being voted one of the sexiest men alive. That last made him really giggle; he still could not fathom that, and invariably shuffled it off onto better clothes, or more money, or celebrity in general. “You’re so level-headed about all this. It’s good I have you to talk to,” he sighed. I didn’t say how well I understood the adulation of his fans, or how, more and more, when I should have been writing, my thoughts drifted to red hair and green eyes, to long legs and gentle strong hands.

A few nights before Christmas, I took a break from writing to curl up with a cup of tea and a book Clay had recommended. A friend's sister made me a tiny tabletop tree out of wire coat hangers and tinsel, and the lights woven through it sparkled and gave my silent apartment a hint of cheer. I was engrossed in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime when my phone rang, not the cell, but the land line. "I'm surprised you're there!" Clay said. "I didn't realize I'd dialed this number till it was already ringing. I figured you'd be on your way to your folks'."

"Not yet," I lied, and changed the subject. That wasn't hard, since he was home in North Carolina, and eager to chatter about his surprise gifts for his mom and little brother, and how wonderful it was to be able to give them things they wanted. It warmed me, but then I was saddened to hear him talk about the unfriendliness of some of his classmates at his graduation.

"I don't get it," he said, sounding truly confused.

"They're jealous," I scoffed. It was a reaction with which I had unfortunately become rather familiar. "They'll regret acting like idiots. How many of them would spend a penny to help other people, if they suddenly got a million dollars? Not one of them is half the person you are. You didn't have to start your foundation. You didn't have to help me out, for that matter."

"Oh yes I did! It was a good thing Jerome knew somebody in your area who could do the job, too. Especially since…well, Jerome may not be working with me much longer."

His voice abruptly dropped, and took on a tone of deep sadness. "Clay, why?"

"I got together with our hockey team here in Raleigh, and we had some kids with special needs come out to the arena to skate last week. Then that night I sang at the hockey game, and I went to meet some people in the sky boxes, people who gave money to my foundation. There were more of them than I thought, and it wasn't very organized. They started takin' pictures. We asked them not to use flashes, because my eyes are actin' up, but some of them did anyway, and Jerome got pretty sharp with them, and pulled me out of the suite. I was kind of frustrated as it was, and I got mad at him and I really dressed him down. I told him he couldn't treat people that way and work for me. But he wouldn't back down. He insisted he was only takin' care of me and that was his job and he was gonna do it the best way he knew how…and I just think he may not want to stay around after that. I don't know what to do, Ari. I don't know what to say to him. I like him so much, and I trust him and I don't want him to go. But I can't apologize for the way I felt, just for the way I said it."

"Then do. You're very sensitive to other people's feelings, Clay. You shouldn't be sorry for that, or try to change it. That's one thing that makes people love you. It's the same thing that makes you sorry now you yelled at Jerome. You don't know what to say? Say what you just said to me. Speak your heart. He'll understand, I think."

He was quiet for a long few moments. "Thank heavens for you," he said at last with a sigh that made my heart flutter. I could almost feel his breath in my ear.

I loved talking to him, but on this night, as the conversation meandered on, I found myself plotting an exit strategy, so I wouldn't have to lie to him again about my family. Then, it was too late. He asked when I was leaving, and well, I told him the truth. So much for the exit strategy. I couldn't have said why I came clean to him, when even my closest friends didn't know; but I told him everything. Clay was appalled. "But--but--they're your parents. How could they talk to you that way? And what you wrote is not filthy, either. It's sweet, and romantic, I guess, not like I know much about romantic, and it's a cool story. And it's sexy, even if the gurrl is from outer space. And you needed to tell all about the, well, the sexy parts, because the person readin’ can’t find out the guy has powers unless they actually see that scene where the two of ‘em are, like, doin’ the deed, ‘cause that’s when it happens. Does that make any sense? I could jerk your folks bald-headed for treating you this way!”

He fell all over his tongue with an infuriated, endearing clumsiness that made me laugh despite my melancholy. “Well, it’s too late to rewrite it even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I’m not ashamed of anything I write. That’s how the story happened, so that’s how I told it. If that makes any sense.”

“That sounds so funny at first, since it didn’t really happen, but you know what? I think about it, and it does make sense. I think I understand. Don’t ever be ashamed of yourself, Ari. I’m just so sorry about all this. Listen, what if I…” His voice trailed off. I prayed he wouldn’t impulsively invite me to North Carolina for Christmas. His sympathy would be ill-returned, even if I accepted, because I was beginning to doubt my ability to spend much time around him without revealing that my feelings for him were barreling past friendship with a bullet. Thankfully, if he entertained the idea, he thought better of it, because he steered the subject back to my writing, praising the love scenes and the way I made the outlandish alien-human liaison seem real. I did not admit to my total reliance on written research, having had no experience in the field: not the field of alien sex, but the field of sex period. Yes, I figured I was the oldest living virgin in the US outside a convent. As I said before, fat deformed geek girls don’t get much action, especially when you can’t bring yourself to trust a guy enough to take your pants off.

Finally Clay signed off, with a promise to call again soon. I settled back with my reading and my tea, but drowsiness overtook me, and I slipped from the moorings of the world and drifted off into a sea of wishes…

His arms hold me close. “I’ve been wantin’ to do this for so long,” he murmurs, his soft voice husky. “I’ve loved you from the minute I set eyes on you, I think. Maybe that doesn’t sound original, I told you I don’t know much about bein’ romantic. You’re the writer, not me. You told me to say what’s in my heart, and I can’t keep this shut up in there any longer. I love you, Arianne, I love you…” His aventurine eyes are bright with passion, and his mouth is moist and hot when it finds mine, and I yield utterly to his touch as I had never been able to do with any other…I woke with a guilty jerk, to the lonely glitter of the little Christmas tree.

On Christmas Day, I slopped around the apartment in my ratty old sweats. Even the ‘orphan’ friends I’d celebrated Thanksgiving with had somewhere to go for Christmas. I focused enough to write a little, then threw it away and started over, unable even to settle on one of several plot ideas for another manuscript. After a while, I gave it up and stared at some ice skating on TV. I had almost decided to nuke some frozen Indian food, just to be as defiantly anti-holiday as possible, when a knock on my door startled me. A grinning UPS man in a Santa hat stood on my doorstep, and over my protests bestowed a huge Styrofoam cooler on me. Dumbfounded, I went to the window just to convince myself I wasn’t dreaming, and watched him return to his brown truck, chatting on a cell phone.

After my stalker experience, I wasn’t about to open the box without some indication of its provenance. A tag on top might answer that, but my reach for it was interrupted by the beep of my phone. “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!” Clay yelled over a background chorus of happy shouts. “You said you didn’t have plans, so you can have dinner with us.”

“I—huh?”

“Put your phone on speaker and go open the box, willya?” he giggled. “I know you got it, the UPS guy just called to tell me.” Dazed, I found inside turkey and dressing, beans and potatoes and gravy, yams and rolls and a big slab of buttermilk pie. “It’s not mom’s cookin’, but I asked around, and the place I ordered that from is supposed to be the best in St Louis. We saved you a place at the table, so I’m escortin’ you to your seat.” There was a small bump as he set his phone down. “There you go. Now let’s eat. I’m starved!”

I put my phone carefully in the middle of my nicked kitchen table, and sat down slowly, shaking with disbelief, and thankful Clay couldn’t see the tears in my eyes. No one could stay emotional for long, though, in the cheerful virtual company I was keeping. Clay’s mother was warm and pleasant, and never once asked about my family. She and Clay’s teenage brother were full of questions about my writing, and we talked and laughed till I almost felt at though I was at a holiday table with family. Brett was fascinated as I described our winter work at the Butterfly House, in the exhibits, the learning lab, the library, and of course the conservatory where a thousand butterflies roamed free in a tropical greenhouse. Clay’s mom oohed and aahed. “There’s a place like that over in Durham, I think, but I’ve never been,” she sighed.

‘Me neither, but it sounds incredible. Ari, you’ll have to show me around sometime,” Clay added.

I agreed, though I knew it wasn’t likely to happen. My superiors were getting increasingly annoyed at the hassles of having even a semi-celebrity on the payroll. All the signs said that, even if my writing couldn’t fully support me, I wouldn’t be working there much longer. That being the case, I needed to hurry another book to my publisher, to keep myself afloat. So, after dessert and one more round of thanks, I attacked my notebooks with renewed vigor. From the assortment of ideas cooking in my brain, I settled on a supernatural thriller about an aspiring cowboy singer, the woman he loved, and his obsessed black-magic-practicing (and dead) ex-girlfriend.

Every spare moment (and some not so easily spared) over the next few weeks was spent sketching out the plot and setting to work, but I did, with some misgiving, give myself a break on New Year’s Eve to watch Clay on MTV, singing live in Times Square. As he rocked out and crooned, I admired his voice, his presence, and the way he worked the crowd and the TV cameras; but at the stroke of midnight, at the wide-eyed boyish wonder on his face, as though he could not believe where he was, my heart would no longer be denied. With a sudden fierce intensity, I wished I were beside him…around us a million people laugh and shout and cheer, but his is the only smile I see, his the only whisper I hear, as we bring in the New Year with a deep wet kiss that seems to take up the first hour of the newborn year…the pictures are in USA Today the next morning. We love it…

I forced myself back to reality with a stern reprimand. If I didn’t stop wasting my creative energies on juvenile fantasies, I’d never get another book written!

The book got done, or at least got into the process, just fine, however. The sex scenes, if anything, were rather more explicit than my first work had been. They needed to be, for the erotically charged horror to work, and I nosed and asked around as much as I could trying to get things right. It’s a bitch being a virgin trying to give birth to a sexy novel. Guess I better learn to crochet, ‘cause I can definitely forget inheriting Grandma’s afghans. Help came from an unexpected source, though: those fantasies I kept trying to repress. More and more, my feelings for Clay found their way into the thread of my narrative, becoming the heroine’s love and desire for her haunted beloved. My need became hers. I gave to her the tingle that crossed my skin when I thought of Clay touching me; the brush of his breath through my hair; the way my body literally spasmed sometimes at the sound of his voice. They helped, those thoughts, yet they hurt too, and I was perversely glad he didn’t call as often, too busy preparing for his first real tour, with Kelly Clarkson. I wrote on through the gray January days. Sometimes my mind flew faster than my fingers could follow; sometimes I slogged on through a morass of unusable verbiage.

My birthday was late in the month, and I decided to treat myself to a night off. Instead of going home after yet another tense day at work, for a single gal’s dinner (which in my kitchen could be anything from cold cereal to a quesadilla made from pita bread and leftover Chinese takeout) I took myself out to dinner. At my favorite mom-and-pop Vietnamese restaurant I savored a big bowl of pho (that’s pronounced faa, if you’ve never had the pleasure) full of noodles and broth and beef, with all the sauces and spices and chopped fresh herbs you could ask for on the side, to dress it up. I headed home so relaxed and mellow, I almost didn’t care that I hadn’t heard a word or gotten a card from any blood relation. I was a grown-up. I didn’t need to waste energy on such foolishness.

The parking lot of my apartment building echoed with the usual noises of car doors slamming and people walking and talking, their breath puffing in the cool air. Since my brush with stalker-dom, I noticed every detail, but sensed nothing amiss, until footsteps clumped up the steps behind me and halted when I stopped at my door. I gripped my keys to use as a weapon and tensed to turn. “Okay, fine, don’t even say hi then!” I gasped and whirled. Clay stood grinning, in a brown ski sweater and well-fitting jeans, and holding what looked like a white bakery box. “C’mon, open the door, it’s cold out here!”

I sputtered, and allowed myself to squeal, and did not allow myself to hug him. We landed on my worn couch and he deposited the box on the beat-up coffee table. He was bursting with excited accounts of rehearsal escapades, how cool it was to have a real band and backup singers behind him even if he did have to share them, and how much fun Kelly was to work with. I heard that with a contrary sort of pleasure; they’d likely end up dating, and maybe more, and the farther he slipped from my reach into the stratosphere the quicker I might get over him. “Oh Lord, I need to shut up,” he laughed finally. “Get into your cake, birthday gurrl!”

He flipped the lid up, and I sat and stared. ‘It’s chocolate,” I said at last. Boy, was it ever: all smooth ganache, and little curly shavings, and luscious looking.

“Uh, yes, it is. You told me you love chocolate. Something about it being the perfect female food? You do still like it, don’t you?”

“I love it. But—you can’t eat chocolate.”

“So? It’s not my birthday. It’s yours.”

He had, obviously, no idea why I burst into tears, although that didn’t stop him from pulling me into his arms and rocking me and rubbing my back till I calmed down. “I…I never had a chocolate birthday cake,” I confessed between sniffles and hiccups, horrified at myself but unable to hold back. “My sister didn’t like chocolate, so my parents always said it was selfish of me to want something the whole family couldn’t share.”

“Bullshit!” Clay exclaimed, and then turned bright red.

“Oh ho!” My tears melted into laughter. “So you do swear!”

“Sometimes,” he muttered, though his air of shame was ruined by the sneaky grin that peeked through. “But that is bullshit, Ari. That’s ridiculous. It wasn’t fair to you.”

I shrugged. “I should be over that stuff by now. Sorry. I’m sure it’s hard for you to understand why it still gets to me.”

Unexpectedly, he shook his head. “Not hard at all. My…birth father and I haven’t spoken since I was sixteen. I even changed my last name so I wouldn’t have to pass anything of his on to my kids. But every year, even after we weren’t in touch, he sent me a birthday card. Some dumb kiddie card, granted, and I didn’t want it to matter to me, but it did. It mattered that at least he remembered he had a son, and that every stinkin’ year, he remembered the day I was born.” He was still holding me, and I felt him sigh a little. “I’ve never told that to anybody, not even mom. That it mattered to me, I mean.”

I laid my head on his shoulder, less afraid now of what I had confided, and hoping he understood my silence to honor his confidence. This near, I could see every little freckle on his neck, and every stubbly cinnamon hair born since his morning shave. He smelled clean and male and good, and I tilted my head up to find him looking down at me with his mouth slightly open as though startled, even distressed. I froze, sure he could hear my aching heart’s pounding, sure he could divine my secret from my eyes. Then his strange look passed, leaving his thoughts masked by a big smile. “Cut this cake already! Do you have any ice cream? I brought Twinkies for myself in case I got the munchies, but I’m kinda AWOL right now, so I can’t stay much longer. We’re supposed to be checkin’ out the Saavis Center downtown, where we’re playin’ in March, and I got Kelly to cover for me for a little while…”

Of course you did, I thought sadly after he rushed out the door a few minutes later. I wiped a stray tear aside, and said a little prayer for solace before I went to bed.

The chocolate cake, with the one slice Clay had urged on me gone, sat in its box on the kitchen counter till green things started growing on it. I kept writing, and striving to balance my day job with cons and book signings and even a writers’ conference in Minnesota. Keeping busy was one way to keep focused. Another help came in the form of a phone call I got in late February from my younger brother Charlie. We hadn’t spoken in ages; he’d been in the Army when I’d left home. He’d fallen in love in the Middle East, with an Egyptian girl who worked as a translator, and when he’d come back to the States with his new fiancée my parents had cut him off just as they had me. He and Amirah were getting married and moving to New Jersey, and he wanted me to come to the wedding. He’d read my book, and he liked it, and he loved me. Now I had, or so I told myself, everything a reasonable woman could ask for: a tie to family, and growing success in a field many dreamed of but few achieved.

I was, I instructed myself, fulfilled. So why wasn’t my rebel self listening? Why couldn’t I persuade a certain rangy redhead to vacant my mind, my heart, and various other locations in my body? Every time I led a crowd of children through the Butterfly House, I imagined Clay’s eyes bright with enjoyment watching me. I ate leftover pizza, and imagined him claiming my cast-off black olives, with a smudge of sauce on his chin that I cleaned off in an inefficient but highly pleasurable way. I watched his interviews and his music videos, and spun fantasy scenarios as elaborate as they were absurd, things I had never even dared entertain before. And at night, I lay alone, and I touched myself and wished he were touching me, his fingers warm on my flesh, bringing sweet ache and release…

He murmurs delicious dirty things in my ear. I gasp and squirm, gripped by desire with no wish to escape, as he strokes me, stoking the fire consuming me from within with his every teasing touch. “Oh God, Clay—“ I catch his face between my hands, and kiss the sweat from his flushed cheeks and forehead. “How can you possibly love me this much?”

The look of adoration in his passion-darkened eyes nearly completes the process of melting me. “How could I not?” His naked body slides down mine, nibbling as though tasting me and finding me good, even sighing ‘mmmmm’ when he finds the source of my juice, his mouth and hands driving me to the brink and then over it…

My gasps of release echoed in the empty apartment, till I lay spent from the lonely journey of my mind and body—till the phone rang, shocking me from my delirium. I screeched and grabbed for it in the dark with shaky hands. “Ari! It’s Clay. Listen, I know it’s late, sorry, but I was so excited I had to tell you right away…it’s confirmed we’ll be getting’ into St Louis next Saturday mornin’, before the show Sunday night. So we can, um, get together Saturday. If you want to, I mean. I’d still like to see that butterfly place, but you probably get sick of it.”

“Uh, I—“ Frantically, I squeezed the smut out of my sponge of a brain and struggled to think straight.

“Unless you’ve got other plans. I understand, really I do. It’s bad of me to even call beggin’ like this, on such short notice.”

“No! I mean, ah—“ Now was the moment to concoct something, anything to get out of this spot. If I didn’t cut off contact with him, I’d never get over this obsession. But conversely, if I kept running from it, wouldn’t it keep chasing me, ready to pounce and rip me apart with need for him? “The phone woke me, that’s all. Give me a second to think. Yeah, I think we could do that.”

By the time I hung up, Clay had arranged to pick me up at my apartment on Saturday afternoon. For the next week and a half, I was a wreck. I could have pled illness and begged off without lying, because I was sick with fear. Could I really spend any time with him without letting the truth slip? I’d rather never see him again than have him look at me with scorn. Surely, though, facing it was the best option, the only option really, and so I prepared that day, dressing as though for a day at work, and wearing my teacher-ish khakis and button down like armor when I answered the door.

“Wow, you dressed up!” Clay was wearing navy sweats and green sneakers and glasses, his hair soft and natural and not waxed into spikes. I reminded myself to talk normally, and smile, and not hurl myself into his arms. When we walked out into the parking lot, though, I truly panicked.

“Clay—it’s a limo! I can’t show up at work in a limo. What will people—“ I shut my mouth. They wouldn’t say anything they weren’t already saying, I reflected sourly. I had no close friends among my coworkers anymore, since Trini had gotten pregnant, fired, and married, in that order.

Clay, naturally, thought it was hilarious. “What’ll they think? They’ll think you got another hit, Miss Best Seller! C’mon!”

I smiled weakly and let him hand me in. He didn’t know how close I was to being fired, and I did not tell him. Thankfully, Jerome’s grinning presence in the limo kept things friendly, and they both began to ask questions about the Butterfly House. That let me kick into tour-guide mode, and relaxed me a little, allowing me to regain control of myself and not act like an infatuated nerd.

Clay frankly gasped with amazement at the huge butterfly and caterpillar sculptures out front, nearly thirty feet tall each. As we walked through the exhibit hall, checked in at the main desk and went into the conservatory, I chattered on about the scores of species of plants and insects represented. Even Jerome was as wide-eyed as a kid. Clay laughed as several beauties fluttered over to greet us, and when he put out his hand one even landed on it. ”Have you had anything sweet lately?” I asked.

“I ate a sweet roll a while ago. Can it tell?”

“If you didn’t wash your hands, probably. They smell with their feet. If you touch their front feet with sweet, like a paint brush dipped in sugar water, they’ll uncurl their tongues to feed. See?”

Sure enough, the visitor walked around on his palm, taking advantage of the unexpected snack. “Oh Lord, that tickles!” he cackled at the touch of its prickly little legs, and twitched, sending the curious moocher winging on its way. We went on ours too, wending our way through the walkways. The diffused sunlight filtering through the glass walls and ceiling lit Clay’s face, upturned to take in every detail; he looked like some heart-stopping work of art, beauty captured forever luminous. I fought not to stare, at his cheekbones and lips and marvelous eyes.

On Saturdays, the lab wasn’t generally active, but we retraced our steps back into the exhibit hall and to the desk, beside the lab entrance, just to check and see if anything worth watching might be going on. This time we approached in the middle of a small commotion. Mack, one of the tour guides, was engaged in a heated exchange with the receptionist Mindy. “I don’t care if nobody else is here, I’m not taking them!” he declared. “I saw Arianne in the conservatory. She’s an ed guide, she’ll take ‘em.”

“She’s not on the clock, and between you and me she wouldn’t anyhow,” Mindy returned with her usual snippiness. “She showed up with some guy in a limo. You know she thinks she—“

I could have cheerfully snipped her head off, but I had to stay cool and not give anyone an excuse to fire me. Fortunately, Mack spotted me then. “Ari! Oh god, help me out here. We got a walk-in group and I—I can’t do them. They’re retarded. I can’t take them. The board can fire me, but I won’t do it.”

Behind me I could almost feel Clay tense, but my concern was more for my coworkers. Mack was a burly guy, but he was nearly wringing his hands in genuine distress. “Mack, they don’t bite!” I took his hands and tried to lighten the mood. “Developmental delays aren’t contagious, you know.”

“No, no, it’s just—I’ve never been around those kind of people, and I don’t know what to say or how to act. They scare me. Or more like, really, I guess, I’m scared I’ll do something wrong. You gotta take them, Ari, please!”

Actually, I jumped at the chance, a welcome distraction from my conflicted emotions. “Okay, if you come along and give it a try. You’ll be surprised. People are just people. Don’t worry. And if my friend can come too. He’s a special ed teacher anyway, so he’s familiar with working with people with special needs.”

Mack glanced at Clay, and dropped his head and his voice. “Friend, huh?”

“Yes, friend,” I sighed, and turned to quickly explain the situation to Clay. His face brightened with anticipation; sadly, I suspected he had sensed my tension, and was as glad as I to put some metaphoric space between us. He sent Jerome back to the limo, while I went to collect the group. It turned out to be a Girl Scout troop, eleven adorable young girls with Down’s syndrome, all proudly parading into the lobby in their uniforms. They listened intently throughout the tour, and pointed and squealed at every appearance of a new butterfly. I felt myself calm, the focus of the group relieving me of the need to force my eyes away from Clay. He stood in the rear as the group moved, chatting quietly with Mack; probably educating him as we went, I thought with a hint of amusement. At one point, the path dead ended, and as I passed the group to turn them and head back the way we had come I heard Mack say “--great friend, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. A great friend,” Clay replied in a tone so flat I feared I had hurt him. I thrust the guilt aside along with everything else, to concentrate on my work. The girls helped immeasurably. One found a caterpillar and excitedly ran with it to the nearest grownup, who happened to be Clay. Poor Mack nearly jumped out of his socks. I couldn’t imagine being so uneasy around a child simply because she was different. Clay squatted and instantly transformed into an amazing teacher. I reassured the surprised troop leader he knew exactly what he was doing, and then stood in silent awe and watched him, wishing he could clone himself. Pop culture’s gain was clearly the classroom’s loss. It was a side of him I had never seen, and in a perverse way wished I hadn’t, because it only made me love him more.

I couldn’t let myself be sucked into staring at him again, though, so I labored on. Mack finally overcame his nerves enough to briefly take charge of the tour, and tag-team with me for the remainder. We went to the lab and I scrounged up a craft and storytelling activity. It was a bit unsettling to find Clay’s eyes on me whenever I looked up; I couldn’t fathom why. He said nothing, but jumped right into assisting with the crafts, humming to himself whenever I passed, the tune oddly familiar. While Mack and I told the story and helped the girls act it out, Clay retired to a corner to chat softly with the troop leader.

When I turned the group over to Mack again, who was by now downright confident, to finish up the tour, I meandered over to the corner. Obviously, the troop leader had recognized him, but thankfully hadn’t made a fuss. Clay was singing quietly, and now I did place the melody; it was the song he had sung to me the day we net, thought a different part with different words. “Oh, you don’t know the one, who dreams of you at night, And longs to kiss your lips, and longs to hold you tight; to you I’m just a friend, that’s all I’ve ever been, but you don’t know me…Oh I never knew the art of makin’ love, though my heart ached with love for you, Afraid and shy, I let my chance go by, the chance that you might love me too; You give your hand to me, and then you say goodbye, I watch you walk away, beside the lucky guy, To never ever know, the one who loves you so, No you don’t know me…”

The troop leader’s face was rapt. “I’ll be at the show tomorrow night,” she sighed.

His smile was strangely wistful as we led the girls back through the exhibit hall to the gift shop. (Come on, doesn’t every tour end someplace where you can spend money?) With giggly hugs and cries of thanks, they scattered to find a souvenir of the day. I was surprised to get a quick awkward hug of thanks from Mack too, before he went on his way. Clay and I walked back out among the exhibits. “Pretty quiet out here now,” he offered.

“Yeah, winter operating hours are shorter of course. They’ll close up soon, assuming nobody’s booked the place for tonight. They open it for private parties, weddings and such, for a hefty fee.”

He expressed mild surprise, and asked if we could get one more peek in the conservatory. I agreed, but cautioned him there might not be much to see; in the fading afternoon light, the butterflies would be turning in for the night. The place still held an eerie beauty though, with a few night-owl moths fluttering about. “You’re a natural teacher,” he said.

“Me? You’re the amazing one. Just a joy to watch. You relate grown-up smarts so well on the kids’ level. As for me…I don’t like kids. Well, that sounds wrong. I don’t mean I don’t like kids, but I found out during my student teaching that I’m not much of a disciplinarian. It was too late to change my major then, but I’d never cut it in a classroom. Thank goodness I found another way to make a living.”

“You’re sellin’ yourself short, Ari. You were terrific with those little girls. And with Mack too. He was scared to death, and you worked him right through it. And the way you pulled all the activity stuff together, with no time to prepare? You had it all under control.”

“I’ve gotten good at that over the years. Having things under control, I mean. I had to be, with nobody much else to rely on. Writing’s the same way, really. I run the show. It’s nice, but it can be tiring. Sometimes I wish I could let somebody else run the show for a while.”

“Don’t wish too heartily for that,” Clay cautioned. “Nothing’s worse than not havin’ control of your life. The contract Idol wanted me to sign—they would’ve owned me, essentially. They wanted the rights to my name. My name! I couldn’t’ve even used my own name without their permission!!” He threw up a hand, his eyes snapping with righteous fire. “I got a lawyer and worked out of that before I signed it, but they still got way more of me for the past year than I wanted them to. Like—oh, never mind. Now the contract’s up and I’m getting’ out, but as nasty as being ordered around is, it’s still scary to step out alone, I know.”

“Tell me about it,” I said wryly, thinking how desperately I was clinging to a job where I was no longer welcome, rather than trusting my talent to make my way. “If anybody can pull it off though, it’s you.” He was silent for what felt like quite a long time, looking away from me and down at the walkway. I studied his profile, and wondered again how this remarkable man had managed to hide behind a geek’s mask for so long. “This place makes me think of you.” I didn’t mean to say it aloud. I cursed myself, but stumbled on, cursing myself and the surprised look on his face, to try to salvage some scraps of our friendship and my pride. “I didn’t watch Idol, but I saw the tapes later. You were like this dull little caterpillar, all fuzzy and plain, that exploded into its magnificent wings. They didn’t expect that, did they? And they didn’t know what to make of it, or of you. That’s where they came from, trying to do what they would have done with anyone else. Except you’re not anyone else. Remember that, and hold on to it, and keep it up.”

A hint of an unamused smile tugged at his cheek. “That’s easier said than done sometimes. Not just in business, either, in personal stuff. There’s…this girl.” He took a breath, as though to sigh, but instead words poured from him like song. “She’s brilliant, way smarter than I could keep up with, and beautiful, and I don’t care what anybody says when they look at me now, I’m still the dweeb with the big ears and big feet hidin’ behind the punch bowl at the school dance. I hardly knew how to ask a girl out to begin with, let alone now with this celebrity mess to deal with. This girl, she understands where I am. But she deserves so much—she deserves better than me, Lord knows—but I—I want to be with her, in a way I never felt about any girl before, she takes up every spare brain cell I have, every minute I’m awake, and I don’t have a clue how to tell her, and I’m afraid I’ll do somethin’ stupid—“

I had to stop him. I couldn’t hear more. It was clear now, I’d been right all along. It was Kelly he loved, and as much as it hurt to let go of my infatuation with him, it was more important that I help him, if I could, to be happy. Edgar Cayce, the famous psychic, once said that true love wants for the beloved what the beloved wants for himself. If that were true, then I knew, in that moment of the death of my last fantasies, that I truly loved Clay with all my heart. “Same principle. I told you before to speak your heart. Do it, before you regret not doing it, before somebody else does. If you can call her, do it now. If she’s here in town, tell her face to face. But do it.”

“If she’s—“ He had looked away as though embarrassed, but his head jerked up and around, and his eyes held me helpless. “You know?”

“I guessed as much, a while back.”

“Then why’d you let me keep mopin’ around you?!?” A spark of pique kindled in his gaze and he took a step toward me, his whole body taut. What was I supposed to do buddy, stick my nose in your love life? Before I could snap back at him, he raced on. “Now I really feel like a dope. If you knew how I felt and you weren’t interested, why didn’t you say somethin’ instead of lettin’ me make a total fool of myself? I hate that feeling, worse than anything…You mentioned somebody else—is it that Mack guy?”

“Huh?” I was completely confused. “You lost me. What do I have to do with this? You were talking about Kelly, weren’t you?”

“Kelly?” He halted, his mouth half open, then threw his head back in a laugh that pealed off the glass of the enclosure. “Yeah, I love Kelly. She’s great. She’s nuts. It’s like finally havin’ a kid sister to goof off with and tease.” He moved toward me again, the tension of his body melting into a fluidity I could only compare to a stalking cat, light-footed and intent. “Then you don’t know…I could never think of her the way I think of you, constantly, the things I think of doin’ with you…” I was paralyzed, until his hands closed gently on my shoulders and his face kept moving forward till his lips, so sweet, met my dry nervous ones. A moment later, he pulled away, flushing scarlet. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—“

Again, I did not let him finish. With a little cry, my hands went behind his neck and pulled him back to me, kissing him hard. Clearly it startled him, for a moment, but only for that, and he pulled my body hard against his and held me. I had never been so overswept with a sense of being in the right place, totally in the moment; but the writer’s gift of words to describe it fled. Even now, years later, it’s hard for me to convey it. All I could do was whisper his name over and over, between his kisses as ardent now as mine.

When we came up for air I moved back just far enough to take in his entire face at a look. As though for the first time, my eyes drank in every detail, the tiny patch of white-blond lashes in the long fringe shading his eyes, the freckle that perfectly dotted the bow of his upper lip like the flourish of a divine signature claiming a masterwork. ‘You’re staring. Am I that scary?” he teased.

“No. I’ve been trying so hard not to look at you. It’s been hard even being around you, feeling what I’ve felt and certain you wanted somebody else—“

Clay silenced me with a soft firm hand over my mouth for an instant, the gently inescapable pressure sending thrills through my already unstable body. Fictionalizing, fantasizing, was one thing, but this man, standing here with his hands on me, set me on fire with need. The things I had imagined were nothing set next to this glorious terrifying reality. “No,” he said definitely. “I felt the same way. Sometimes, I had to run, from it, or you. I had to get away before I grabbed you up and did and said things a gentleman just doesn’t. I’ve never felt this way, Ari, not ever.” I admired the crinkles around his eyes so intense, and his mouth, when he smiled in amusement at me. “Although I can’t imagine what you’re still starin’ at with such interest.”

‘You can’t?” I giggled, absolutely giddy. I’m staring at the most attractive man I’ve ever known, who just said he wants me. ME!! And I wanted him, fiercely, and not in any abstract sense. Through long nights, I had pondered whether, if push ever came to shove (pardon the pun) I could ever let my guard down enough. Now suddenly, I knew. I could. I would, given half a chance. I wanted this man’s hands on me, his body between my legs. I wanted him to give me pleasure, and I wanted to do the same for him, even if one incomparable experience of shared gratification was all I ever had from him.

With that realization, though, came another: I couldn’t let him know I wasn’t the practiced lover he thought me. What would he think? It wasn’t just that it would likely scare him away, wondering what was wrong with a woman my age who’d never had sex even once. He had clearly felt somehow discomfited at the small display of aggression he’d just displayed; how much would he beat himself up if he found out he’d propositioned a virgin? No. I knew how to talk the talk, even if I’d never walked the walk, and now was the time to use it. “Do you really not know how hot you are? Clay, you’re so real, and smart, and funny, and caring, not to mention the obvious physical—“

“Oh, stop that, right now. You’re embarrasin’ me!” he protested, flushing again but grinning this time. “I’m nothin’ but a big geek. I’m the one who should be staring. You’re incredible. You’re so smart and strong, and pretty…”

I wondered fleetingly if I were hallucinating. Surely this gorgeous man didn’t just call me pretty. I shivered, suddenly feeling like a fraud, like I was hiding in somebody else’s body and stealing her life; and to halt the shakes I reached for him, lacing my fingers through his thick fine hair. “Enough talking,” I interrupted. “Kiss me, Clay. Kiss me like you mean it.”

He caught his breath, his eyes lit, and he did just that. And that was when I saw Jared. He was frozen in half step, doing his last walk through the House before closing, his face slack with shock and something I could not put a name to. For a few eternal seconds, I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to say anything. I wanted him to see me, kissing and being kissed so passionately, wanting and being wanted. But for Clay’s sake, I couldn’t let it go on. “Clay…we have company.”

“We do?” he murmured, his breath against my now wet lips making me quake. “Who?”

“A guy named Jared. He’s a manager here. He’s a jerk. Always talking about how he wants to pork me. Mostly because I won’t let him. Pork me, I mean.”

“Really?” Clay’s voice dropped to a low and frankly intrigued rumble I had never heard from him. “He still there?”

“Yeah. He looks—kinda mad, and very surprised—I don’t know. We’d better go. He calls you a sissy, but he’d run to the tabloids in a heartbeat with a tale for a few bucks or just some attention, I bet.”

While I spoke, Clay made no move to leave or even turn and look. Instead, he slipped his glasses off and set them on my face. “I always thought these could come in handy one day,” he muttered as he took hold of my hips and shifted me slightly to one side. I gulped back laughter, squinting through the fog of his prescription, as I realized he was using the glasses’ lenses to see behind him. “Ah, there he is. Yeah, big macho guy, you can’t believe the sissy got the gurrl, huh?” His almost-whisper had a startlingly sarcastic bite. “He looks…” An evil half-grin crooked his mouth. “Jealous,” he finished, and swooped upon my mouth again, robbing me of breath. His fingers dug into my hips, then slid around and cupped my ass as his pelvis moved against mine. Unbelievably, I could feel his arousal, and felt myself wet in reply. I caught hold of his broad shoulders and hung on, unable even to moan his name, caught up in the tempest of his unexpected ferocity. At last, he released me and peered again into his impromptu mirror. “He’s gone,” he said with a small smirk of satisfaction, and reclaimed his glasses. “Now we can go.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, still dizzied from the glimpses of a forceful man lurking inside him, beside the playful uncertain boy and the capable teacher, and even more unsteadied by the awareness that, as counter as it ran to my instinct for autonomy, I could learn to like letting this forceful man have his way sometimes. “Jared’s more likely to run to the zoo board than anyplace else, actually. They’ll love it. It’s all the excuse they need to…”

“To what?”

“To fire me,” I admitted quietly as we wound our way out of the darkening building. “They’ve been wanting to for months. They think the attention I’m getting is disruptive.”

We walked on a few moments without speaking. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“No. I don’t tell people much.”

“But I’m not ‘people’.” He stopped and turned me to face him, his tone almost hurt. “Or I don’t want to be just ‘people’ to you. You can tell me anything, at any time, Ari. Okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, and meant it, even knowing I was about to lie to him again. “Now, what about the rest of this evening? It’s nearly dinner time, and I’m sure you need to rest, or rehearse or something.”

‘Not to worry, I have a plan. I’m good with plans.”

Jerome had to have noticed when we got into the limo holding hands, but in the best tradition of discretion he turned a blind eye. I directed the driver to my favorite Italian restaurant, in the part of St Louis known as the Hill. That meal was an experience in itself. I didn’t have to work too hard to hide my emotions from Jerome or anyone else, because Clay was recognized the moment we walked in, by a large group of diners who had, amazingly, traveled from all over the country to see him in concert! So he was kept busy with them, and Jerome was kept busy trying to keep them away long enough for Clay to eat. To top it off, I got recognized by a few avid readers myself. Our being together would be all over the Internet by tomorrow, I figured, especially if anyone remembered our GMA encounter…and Clay’s fans have memories like elephants.

Thus, supper was not a leisurely affair. We returned to the limo, Clay with an odd, almost feverish glint in his eye. Being fawned over by scores of women was great for any guy’s ego, I imagined, and thought it probably made me look much less desirable by comparison. That angst lasted until his hand folded over mine, and his leg pressed with definite intent against my hip. “Jerome, just drop me at Ari’s. I want to hang with her awhile.” The bodyguard protested. “Yes, I’ll get back to the hotel fine. No, I won’t get swarmed. Nobody’ll see me.” To illustrate, he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt. For every argument, he had an answer, so when the limo pulled out of my parking lot we both stood and waved to it. “So,” he said, “now what?”

Time for me to reclaim the initiative, I decided. “Drug store run,” I replied brightly. “For condoms, and maybe some ice cream?”

I tripped off toward my car, not noticing I was alone till I was halfway there. Clay stood flat-footed, with his mouth almost literally hanging open. I smiled, feeling more in control of my situation. Yeah, there ya go. I’m the one who writes smut, remember buddy? Strangely, though, I felt a little disappointed, for a reason I could not immediately pin down, as he got in and we rode to Walgreen’s in silence. I sprang for a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry’s vanilla, and closed my eyes and grabbed at the condom rack. He’d know what to do with the thing.

The return was as uncommunicative as the trip out had been, and I noted that febrile glitter had fled his eyes. Maybe he really had changed his mind. My every fear was realized when I parked, and as I fumbled with the seal belt he burst out, “Ari, no. I can’t do this.”

“Clay—“

He cut me off. “Let me finish!” he said, his tone sharp and yet somehow tremulous at the same time. “I’ve read your writing. I know you know a lot, probably more than me, about, y’know, this. I can’t do it. I can’t give you what I’m sure you’re expectin’. I thought I could, but I can’t keep lyin’ to myself or to you. You’d know it, as soon as we, well, um, you just would. I’m sorry. When one person’s feelin’ somethin’ and the other one’s feelin’ somethin’ different, it just isn’t right.”

Yep. He was right. I should have known. I did know, I castigated myself. “Don’t apologize, Clay. I understand.” I will stay cool. I will be a grown-up. I was not going to be some wimpy romance-novel bimbo, the kind I refuse to write because I hate them so. I told myself all those things, while my eyes filled to near overflowing with tears. I stared straight ahead out the windshield as I spoke; if I turned to look at him, I was lost. “You’re right. Sex without mutual feeling is pointless. It’s nothing but messy exercise, and not worth the effort. I’m glad you made yourself clear, before things went any farther, and you made a mistake we’d both regret. You may have noticed that even though I write characters having premarital sex, they always have feelings for each other. So it’s okay.” No, it’s not!! my body and heart both screamed, and I felt my tenuous grip on composure start to slip. “It’s all part of what I said before. Be yourself. Be true. You’ll find someone you care for, one of these days, and the wait will have been worth it. You wouldn’t be the man you are, the man I…love…if indiscriminate sex were within your reach.”

I sat and stared into the night, willing myself not to sob. There was no reply, and I half expected to find that he had somehow managed to silently get my squeaky old car door open and vanish into the night. Instead, when I turned, Clay sat staring too, but at me. His eyes were bright again, but now with big tears of his own. “What are you talkin’ about?”

I blinked away as much moisture as I could, and frowned. “What you just said. That’s what I’m talking about. You said you couldn’t have sex with someone you didn’t have feelings for, and I agreed. I’d be surprised if you could, frankl—“

“That is NOT what I said!!” His eyes were still wet, but his voice regained that snap. “I said I couldn’t—do it—with somebody who didn’t feel the way I do. Somebody who only expected, um, sex, and nothin’ more. You said you wanted me, but that was all you said. So that’s what I understood you to mean, and I want you too, but I can’t do that. I want more than just your body. I lie on my bunk on the bus and stare at the little picture of you on the back of your book, and rub my fingers over the place where you wrote my name and signed yours, till I’ve almost wore the ink off the paper. I keep a little calendar where I mark the days I call you, and I have to look at it all the time to remind myself not to call every day and make a nuisance of myself, because you’re busy writin’, and you don’t have time to be distracted by some dumb hick that lost a talent show. I’ve never been in love, Arianne, but I’m pretty sure this is it. And it’s not very pleasant either, bein’ in love alone.”

I could not speak, or move, and then the craziness of it all overtook me, and I started to laugh quietly. “I don’t think a relationship between us would work very well,” I said, wiping my eyes. “We keep talking past each other. When I go to the grocery, I see Hot Pockets, and they make me think of you, and I smile. When I walk through the mall, I see a shirt and I think ‘that would look so good on Clay’. You’re right, you do distract me, but you don’t have to pick up a phone to do it. You do it just by walking around on the same planet with me.” He still looked baffled and a bit hostile. “You’re thinking I only want in your pants? I do, but that’s only the beginning of what I dream of. I love you, Clay.”

He sniffled, and a small smile began to bloom at the corners of his mouth, and he reached out to me. I tasted salt when we kissed, and whether they were his tears, or mine, or both, I didn’t know or care. Our eyes met; his held a warmth and light now, and freedom from a tension I only now recognized by its departure. “I usually say somethin’ goofy to defuse a really intense conversation,” he said softly, “but I can’t think of a thing.”

“How about ‘let’s go inside before the ice cream melts all over my upholstery’?” I suggested. He giggled, and we rushed upstairs. ‘Let me put it in here to firm up.” I put the cartons in the freezer, taking out my other purchase first and carrying it over to where he stood by my front door. “And we can firm something else up in the meantime.” With my other hand I took hold of the front of his sweatpants and tugged him toward me a step. My response to his amorous advances at the Butterfly House had startled me, but my loss of self-possession in the car had downright unnerved me. Sure, it was thrilling to hear Clay say he loved me, but I had to remind myself this was reality, not fantasy, and I wasn’t surrendering myself to anybody, as much as my traitorous heart and body might want to. I had to take charge again. Or so I told myself, until he let out a surprised little eep, and giggled, and I felt myself start to melt all over again.

“You’re bad,” he informed me.

“Why, yes. Yes, I am.” I returned “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Maybe give ya a little spankin’?” he fired back with a wicked smirk and jerked me toward him. I yelped and my eyes bugged out, and he froze, his devilish grin winking out. “Ari—oh gosh, here I go again. I’m sorry, I don’t know what gets into me sometimes with you!”

“Stop it, Clay! It’s okay. You’ve done nothing to be sorry for. Like back at the Butterfly House, that was cool. It was strong. I...liked it, really. Which is difficult for me to admit, since typical ‘macho’ behavior totally turns me off; but…it’s not the same, with you.” I was startled at my honesty, and at my feelings. “When you get your macho on, it’s not scary.”

“I’m not macho. Wouldn’t know how to be. The only ‘macho’ I ever saw was guys like my birth father, and I swore I’d never, ever be like that.”

“And you’ve succeeded. You are you, and that’s perfect. That’s who I love. Quit being afraid of your own power.”

His reply shocked me. “You’re afraid too, though, aren’t you? You said you’d never had anybody to rely on, that you always had to rely on yourself. You said it made you tired, sometimes. Well, you have somebody now, you understand? If I get macho, it would be for you and only for you, Ari. You can always trust me to take care of you when you need it. I promise. I swear.”

God, I wanted to accept it. How could this geeky school-teacher of a guy evoke in me such a desperate need to surrender, to trust, to let go of my defenses? He drew me into his arms, and I felt myself yield to his embrace. “I don’t know if I can. I’ve had to do for myself for so long. I’m so used to being independent.”

“I don’t want you to give that up, baby. You talk about things in me that you love—well, that’s one of the things I love in you. I love your strength. But I want you to let me in. Please.”

I had never heard anything so wonderful. The words echoed his deeds, gently considerate, and my resistance began to give way. “Yes,” I breathed. “I can do that. For you…Do you know, if nobody had been in the conservatory this evening…”

“What?” he coaxed when I stopped.

“I…I would have loved for you to take me. Right there.”

“On that concrete walkway? That would’ve been awfully uncomfortable.”

“No, you nut.” I couldn’t believe these words were coming out of me, these dark secrets of my need, being spoken suddenly with such light casualness; and he was listening, and not condemning. I felt so free. “There’s a place in there, a little hill, sort of, covered with soft green moss, and sometimes I take my lunch there and sit, or read or write. But sometimes, I lie back on it, and look up, and imagine you’re there.”

“Really?” Again, his voice dropped on the word, but this time with a low purr. “Doin’ what?” I looked up at him, opened my mouth, and then closed it and looked away and flushed. I couldn’t let him any farther into my fantasies yet. “Never mind. I think I can guess.” One big hand took hold of my chin, and gently urged me to meet his gaze again. “Was I gettin’ my macho on?” He started to move forward, backing me up step by step until my butt bumped the back of my sofa.

The wry twist of his mouth made me laugh, even while my body was reacting in an unexpected and highly politically incorrect manner to being cornered. “Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes you’re tenderness itself, and sometimes you tease me until I beg…”

“For what?” He leaned in, nearly bending me back over the sofa back, his lips almost—almost---touching mine. “What do I have you beggin’ me for, Arianne?” His eyes were darkening; I couldn’t look away from them. Finally, his mouth found mine, his tongue tickling my lips before sliding past them. I gasped, but before I could reciprocate and twine mine with it, his head moved back and he licked his own lips. “For that?”

“For starters,” I managed. My head was spinning, and I felt like I’d swallowed half the citizens of the Butterfly House.

He kissed me again, and caught his breath when my hands slid under his sweatshirt and ran up his chest over the T-shirt underneath it. “What else? And don’t say ‘pork’, unless you were imaginin’ us eatin’ barbecue.”

My quickening breath burst from me in a gale of laughter. At that moment, I could not have been more thankful for Clay’s gift of humor, saving me from the fear that I couldn’t live up to his expectations, the anxiety building in me alongside my desire. I flung my arms around him and held on tight. “I love you so much,” I whispered into his shoulder. As his long arms wrapped me I added, “And no, for the record, the word ‘pork’ never enters my mind at the same time you’re there.”

“That’s good,” he murmured. “Very good. Now show me what does.”

I led him to my bedroom, suddenly conscious of what a mess it was. An empty Diet Coke can lay on the bedside table, and papers and notebooks were spread across the bedspread where I had left them from working on the new novel. Clay gazed around the room, his eyes missing nothing. “Sorry about the mess.”

“What? Oh, no, don’t. I, um…it’s girly. Definitely a girl’s room.”

Well, yeah, I supposed it was, though most of the décor, from the ruffled curtains to the flowered coverlet, were thrift store treasures. “So, what’d you expect?” I kidded. His only response was to kiss me again softly, while fumbling with the buttons on my shirt. I reached down to help, and discovered the source of his awkwardness. “Clay, you’re shaking.” I clasped his hands in mine. “What’s wrong?”

He bit his lip and looked away. “Just nerves, I guess. I don’t want to disappoint you…Isn’t every guy nervous the first time?” he added, half under his breath.

He had no way of knowing that ‘first time’ meant something even more momentous to me. “I’m sure they are, but most of them wouldn’t be brave enough to admit it. And every female probably is too. “ I squeezed his hands. “Look at me, Clay. Please don’t worry about what you think I expect. You’re here, and you told me you love me. That’s so much more than I could ever have expected, or hoped for. I could not be happier.” I let go of his hands, and let him take me into his arms again. “We don’t have to do anything sexual. In fact, would you rather not even be in the bedroom? Is it making you feel tense? We can go back in the living room.”

“No, it’s okay, we can hang in here.” He picked up my notebook, and I tensed reflexively, then forced myself to relax. “What’s this?” When I told him, he lit up. “A new book? What’s it about? Can you tell me, or would your publisher have to kill me if you did?”

“Oh, I can protect you from him,” I snickered, envisioning my editor, short, plump, Jewish, and a frustrated comedian, as an assassin. I sat down on the bed, and kicked off my shoes. Clay flopped on the rag rug and pulled off his big sneakers and then his hoodie. As he stretched out on the floor, his head propped up by one elbow, I tried not to think about how those fuzzy sinewy arms would feel against my bare skin.

I kept the notebook in my lap, though I didn’t really need it; every element of every plot I create is etched in my brain. I told him the story, up to the point I had stopped writing. It was a first for me—my literary ambitions had been so mocked by those around me that I never shared my work with anyone anymore. He listened with a concentration as sexy as any expression I had ever seen on his face; he laughed and grimaced and cried ‘yeah!’ or ‘oh, no!’ at all the right points. “So?” he demanded when I halted. “What happens to them next?”

I beamed. I could not have asked for a more appreciative audience. “It’s not written yet. You’ll just have to keep me around to find out. Like the sultan did Scheherezade. Though hopefully it won’t take a thousand and one more nights, and you won’t be tempted to lop my head off first.”

His expression changed, became something almost hungry, and no less intense. “You’re so beautiful when you tell a story,” he said. “There’s a light about you, an animation that takes you over. You get so excited, the way you move your hands and nod your head and change your voice. It was there a little when you worked with the kids, but not this much. You’re in your element, doin’ this. It’s your callin.” Never moving his eyes from my wide amazed ones, he sat up, then rose to his knees at my feet, his hands resting lightly on my thighs. “Scheherezade,” he murmured, his honeyed accent caressing the word the way I suddenly yearned for those hands to caress my body. “A thousand and one nights wouldn’t be nearly enough to spend with you…”

He stood in one smooth fluid motion, barely putting any pressure on my legs as he did. He might be thin, but the thighs inside those sweat pants had to be powerful, and I hardly dared ponder the thrust they could summon. Kneeling beside me on the bed, he took the notebook from my unresisting hands and laid it aside with respect, before kissing me again. His kisses grew deeper, thirstier, sweetly insistent, and this time his hands did not shake as he eased my shirt off my shoulders. I shivered a little when the cool room air hit the dew of sweat starting to form on my skin, and he paused. “Is that wrong?” he asked, concern flickering across his features.

“No, not at all. It feels so good when you touch me. I like how your hands feel on me. Strong, but not rough. I like it a lot.”

His small smile spoke of relief, and seemed to hint at future plans. His long fingers massaged my shoulders, then he kissed them, as his hands moved to my breasts. I felt behind me and tossed that 18 Hour, craving the feeling of his touch on my bare flesh, needing it with a force that had never driven me before. My nipples were already hard, but when his finger pads brushed across them I cried out and caught my breath, squirming.

“That must feel good too.” His voice dropped as though sharing a secret, and took on a hint of a rasp that keyed me up even more.

“Yes—“ was all I could manage by now. My body went limp, and I lay back on the bed. He hovered over me, still exploring me, watching me writhe and pant, with a look that seemed part curiosity and part a dawning awareness of his power to reduce me to a quivering blob of protoplasm. I wondered fleetingly if I would have succumbed with such willingness, no, eagerness, to another man’s touch? I didn’t think so, and from the spark of delight and even wonder kindling in his face I had a sneaky secret hope that no other woman had responded to him this strongly. I loved the idea of being the best lover Clay had ever had, and the thought did a lot for a soon-to-be-ex-virgin’s confidence.

He pulled his T-shirt off, tossed it aside, and bent till he almost lay on top of me. I gripped the bedcovers and closed my eyes for a moment, against a freakish flash of panic, struggling with the sense of being pinned down and trapped. All of that vanished when I opened my eyes to his look of love and desire, a look I had never seen on the face of a man looking at me. I could trust him. I would trust him.

He shifted his weight until he settled between my hips. “How about this? You like this too?”

I wriggled, my mouth open at the thrill of his crotch hard and urgent against mine. “Better than like,” I gasped. “I love it…I love you.” A sneaky little smile quirked his cheeks. He looked so pleased with himself. With lazy firm little circles of his hips, he ground against me, and his smile widened as I arched and let out a moan. “Oh God, Clay…you…are you reading my mind? How do you know…aah…oh, you know just how to turn me on…”

Slowly, he lowered himself until his lips brushed my ear and growled, “Lucky guess?”

“Oh, I doubt it!”

He moved away to see the big smile on my face answering his; but when he reached for the zipper on my pants I made a face and looked away, suddenly embarrassed. The zipper’s rip stopped. “Ari, is something wrong?”

“I look fatter with no clothes on,” I muttered.

“Fat?” he countered while tossing my khakis aside. “Fat where? You’re all soft and curvy and girly.” He rubbed my hips, his fingers kneading lightly. “None of this would be any fun if both of us were as bony as me.”

Once again laughter saved me from ruining the moment with my fears. “Come here and kiss me, you doofus,” I said, and he smilingly complied. My hands ran over his ribs and back, then found the back waistband of his sweat pants and pulled them down partway. Underneath, he wore plain cotton boxer shorts, so I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t put on fancy underwear for the occasion. His butt was warm, and firm, and I worked my fingers in it and enjoyed my turn to watch him respond. A fine shiver coursed through him, and his face tightened, his lashes trembling on his cheeks and his front teeth catching hold of his lower lip. “You like that?”

“Ahh…mmm…” he moaned between kisses.

“Does that translate as a yes?”

“Yes,” he laughed, then wiggled out of his pants and kicked them across the room, followed instantly by the boxers.

Suddenly, reality, and fear, grabbed me anew. “Damn, uh, you’re big.” Not that I had firsthand knowledge of penises to compare to, of course, but he certainly looked the part. As he fumbled with the condom, I tried to think of excuses: I still wanted him, but could I pull this off, or would he know my lie the instant he tried to enter me? Then I saw his hands shaking again, and my need to save face paled beside my concern for him. Without a word, I sat up and took his hands in mine once more, holding his gaze, till I felt his tension ease. Then I bent over and planted a light kiss on his now rubber-clothed head. He gasped and giggled at the same time, then gently pushed me back down.

He kissed my belly and thighs, then cautiously touched the damp crotch of my panties, the only clothing that remained between us. I reached to pull them off, but he caught my hand and moved it away, shaking his head. “You said you imagined me teasin’ you…was it like this?” Feather-like strokes across the thin cotton wound me to fever pitch, and his eyes fixed on my face as it twisted in arousal. “How long am I gonna have to tease you before you beg, Arianne?”

I whimpered, spiraling out of control and reveling in it. “Oh—aaaahh—yes, please, Clay, please…”

“Please what? Tell me, baby, or I won’t know. Tell me what you want me to do to you. “

Be careful what you wish for. Mister Forceful was back. My pulse hammered in my ears and my crotch, and my skin tingled as though with high fever. “Please,” I gasped. “I need you. I want you inside me. Please make me come…”

He threw my panties aside, and then paused and looked at my exposure with such focus that I found enough functioning brain cells to start worrying again. Maybe a virgin’s crotch even looks different. Heck of a time to find that out! But worry, along with all other rational thought, screeched to a halt when his long fingers found my wetness, and spread it in slow firm strokes around my swollen lower lips and clit.

Now, as the gal in American Pie said, I do know how to get myself off. I know exactly where to touch and how and for how long. Clay didn’t do any of that, but it didn’t matter. I felt like a passenger in my own car with someone else at the wheel, and his every touch cranked the speedometer faster. I thrust against his hand and all but screamed as fireworks of climax burst in me. He jumped as if startled, but I cried, “Don’t stop, oh God please, don’t stop!”

He didn’t, but when I was able to focus on the world again, he looked honestly bemused, as though he hadn’t intended for things to go quite that way. “Oops,” he said in a small voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it’d happen so fast…”

I shook my head. He was still fully erect—if anything, it looked as though watching me come had gotten him even more aroused—and looked to be searching for some assistance. Riding the aftershocks of my own release, I wrapped my hand around him and guided him toward me. I was running on sheer instinct, and it proved true; wet and relaxed, I took him with little effort. The feeling of a man inside me for the first time beggared any description I had ever read or heard, or maybe it was love that did that deed. The sensation was odd, but warm and not at all uncomfortable. I squeezed around him a little, and a follow-up spasm joined in the action. His surprised eyes grew even bigger. “C’mon,” I panted. “Your turn. Come for me, Clay.” Supporting himself with his hands on either side of me, he slid in a little, then out, biting his lip as his hips found their rhythm. “Yeah, oh, that’s it,” I cheered him on as the steady one-a-second pumping built into the human race took him over.

I moved with him. It really was a little like dancing lying down! I tried not to laugh thinking those loud preachers had been partly right all along. I watched Clay’s fine face as his mouth flew open and his head snapped back, eyes half closed as a groan burst from him. “Ohhh yes,” he gasped, his arms and indeed his whole body quivering, frozen in ecstasy; then, he shook his head, as if in wonder, and let himself down on me. I folded my arms around him, tempted to lick the sweat off his face. “Was that okay?” he whispered after a while.

A marble statue would have laughed at the trepidation in his voice. “Okay doesn’t quite cover it,” I told him, and added in complete honesty, “I’ve never had such a great experience in bed.” It was completely true as well, since I hadn’t had any experience in bed.

He turned his head to meet my eyes. “You know what? Me neither.” We both giggled and snuggled together. I loved the feeling of his furry chest pressed against the sensitive space between my breasts, and I found the warmth of him inside me, not moving, just resting peacefully there, very pleasant too.

After a while though, I conceded that time and the real world would not be shut out forever. “You should probably get back to your hotel soon, shouldn’t you? Not that I’m rushing you out the door, but I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, his voice drowsy, and lifted his head, his lips and cheeks faintly flushed. “But I don’t want to. I don’t want to make love to you, and then get up and just leave like—like—“ His voice rose, and his head shake was emphatic, almost frantic. “I don’t want to do that.”

“I know. I don’t want you to go either. But you do have a job to do.”

“I’ll call and tell ‘em I ran off with the circus,” he grunted and flopped back down on my shoulder.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Ah, they’re almost used to my practical jokes by now.”

“Great,” I groaned. “Maybe I was right the first time, out in the car. If you’re that much of a prankster, a relationship between us would never work.”

“Ari!” he sputtered. “It’s just silly stuff.”

“Silly to one person is not so silly to another. Being traumatized once in my life was enough. I don’t play pranks and I don’t participate in them. I can’t watch Candid Camera reruns on cable because they make me cry. Don’t tell me I need to get a sense of humor and grow out of it. I have a sense of humor, thank you. And maybe I need to grow out of it, but I haven’t. In short, if you’re going to be jerking people around, count me out.” I was glad then he wasn’t inside me anymore. Damn, maybe this really was a mistake. Letting him in this way, doing this…I was so close to having somebody to trust…Memories of childhood humiliation clutched at me, and I looked away to keep my angry edge from melting into regret and grief.

Silence like grains of sand built a barricade between us, until his soft voice pushed it over. “Why?” he whispered, and when I dared face him, amusement had faded from his face to be replaced by bewildered concern.

Looking back, I’m still somewhat amazed, though very thankful, that I didn’t say ‘none of your business’, go to the bathroom, and then hand him his pants and show him the door. “When I was five, I was sick at home. Mumps, chicken pox, one of those, I forget. One day my parents told me my whole kindergarten class was coming to see me. I was so excited. I even managed to get out of bed and find my robe and go to the window to look for them to come. Then my parents came back in laughing and saying ‘April fool!’ I cried, and I swore I’d never hurt anybody that way. They thought I was stupid to be so upset, that I couldn’t take a joke. And they never let me live it down. When I told them last year about my book being published, they said it couldn’t be true, that someone was conning me, and of course everybody knew I was so gullible I’d believe anything.”

It was a stupid memory, and I knew it was stupid that the memory still made me want to spit with anger, or cry. I waited for Clay to confirm my rational thoughts, to laugh and say that was nothing, and tell me to let it go. Instead, his eyes widened, and he looked near tears himself. “Oh, baby…” he murmured and hugged me tightly. “They’re mean. I know they’re your parents, and that means you can say or think whatever you want to but other people better not. I don’t care. They are mean.”

“No-oo…” I said hesitantly, surprised by his reaction. “I think they would’ve done it to any of my siblings, who probably would have laughed right along with them. None of them ever understood I was different, or if they did, they thought different was wrong, or bad.”

“Well, it’s not. So if you were going there, stop. I understand. And I promise I will never, ever do anything to hurt you. Please don’t give up on me just because I’m a big dork. You didn’t mean that, did you, about not wanting to be with me? Please say you didn’t. I don’t do mean things to people, just goofy stuff, like hidin’ the backup girls’ hair stuff, and one time I put a raw hamburger in Kelly’s bunk.” I had to laugh at that one. “See? You’re laughin’ too! You should’ve heard her scream. And then she threw it at me, so it’s not like I got out unscathed.”

“Yeah, okay, I guess I could tolerate that, if you promise you don’t do anything worse. Not just do to me, I mean to anybody. It really does make me sad to see other people mocked. Promise?”

“Promise.” Clay lifted his hand as if in oath. “If you promise never to give me a surprise party. I hate ‘em.”

A light suddenly came on in my head. “Oh, that explains why on Idol, when they picked you as the wild card and whatsisname asked how you handled it, you said you hated secrets.”

“Yeah. I hate feelin’ caught off guard. When I was a baby, my mom took me and left my birth father. We moved around a lot, and I was always kind of scared, not knowing what would happen next, or whether she might leave me or something. So now I always want to be prepared for anything, and I hate not being. Like you said, I guess I should’ve grown out of it by now, but I haven’t.”

I kissed the tip of his nose. “You hate the unexpected, and yet you play pranks on others? Where’s the logic in that?”

Clay grinned sheepishly. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’m doin’ the surprisin’. I do like to surprise people. Like watchin’ somebody open a gift they have no idea is coming? That is the best.”

“But do you sneak and open your gifts early?” He laughed and demurred. “Well, I promise you that the only surprises you will ever get from me will be very pleasant and loving ones.” We kissed again, and again. I couldn’t get my fill of his warm, full and mobile lips on mine. “Would you like to clean up and get acquainted with that ice cream?”

I sent him off first, giving myself a moment to check around for any evidence of my perfidy. There was no blood on the sheets. I repressed a twinge of guilt and took my turn in the bathroom.

We ate and chattered till nearly midnight. “So when are you givin’ your notice?” Clay asked, and I barely escaped choking on a melting spoonful of vanilla “C’mon, Ari. You said they were lookin’ for an excuse to let you go. Don’t let them. You’ve got the world ahead of you, if they won’t treat you right, then let them know you don’t need them anymore. Leave. Heck, leave town if you’re ready to.”

“I swallowed and found myself giving his words honest consideration. “Yeah…my publisher is in New York, and my brother and sister-in-law live in New Jersey.”

“New York’s good. I never would’ve imagined it, comin’ from Raleigh, which is, not a small town, but not a very big one; but I like New York a lot. Better than LA, sometimes, I think. I might get an apartment in New York someday. Kim Locke and I are sharin’ a house in LA right now, but the lease is up in the fall and she may go back to Nashville—she got a record deal with Curb and their main office is there, and she’s got an old boyfriend there she misses a lot. I’ve been lookin’ at houses in LA, and I found this amazing old one—it was built for a silent movie star, way back when, and it’s got these high ceilings and shiny wooden floors you can see yourself in. It’s beautiful. I wish you could see it. Would you come look at it with me? Please?”

I laughed to myself. We’ve been lovers for a few hours, and he wants my opinion on his new house? “Okay. You’ll be through touring in a few weeks, right? I’ll come see you then. As for the rest, the leaving St Louis and all…I don’t know. That’s really scary, contemplating such a permanent cut.”

“Why? Because you don’t have enough confidence in your talent? You’ve got a huge best seller out there, and from what you read to me a little while ago, another one is on the way, and who knows how many more after that. Take the chance, honey. I know, I’m a fine one to talk, because I played things safe most of my life, but God gave me some talent and an opening, and I got up the nerve to jump. And I’ll be here to catch you, if you do the same. I promise I will.”

No one could ask for a stouter supporter for any leap of faith. “I’ll think about it, Clay. Honest, I will. And I won’t take too long about it either. I don’t care much for the idea of being fired for no reason other than being an inconvenience.”

“Good,” he said. “I couldn’t leave without hearin’ that.” He claimed one more sugar-and-cream-sweetened kiss as he headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow…it’s still Saturday, isn’t it?...tomorrow night, at the show.”

“Well, um, no, you won’t. I don’t have a ticket. I wasn’t planning to come.” He looked appalled. “Oh please,” I burst out. “I was trying to stay away from you, since I was in love with you but you were in love with Kelly, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, right, I forgot, I was in love with Kelly.” He put his hand to his forehead in mock consternation. “Okay, just go to the Will Call window. I’ll tell ‘em to bring you backstage. See you then. Love you.”

Then he was gone. Slowly I took the remains of my ice cream back to the freezer, the spoons to the sink, and Clay’s empty pint (where did he put all the food?) in the trash. My bedroom seemed strangely changed, smaller somehow, or vacant, as though missing something I hadn’t even known it or I needed until tonight. I stretched out on the rumpled covers and rested my head on the pillow we had shared. It held a hint of moistness, and Clay’s smell, and I let it sing me softly to sleep.

All day Sunday, I was torn between spontaneous giggles of glee and spasms of uncertainty. I tried unsuccessfully to bury myself in my writing; if romance demolished one’s ability to concentrate with such totality all the time, my career was pretty much shot. I sensed this was only for today though, and so let it go mid-afternoon and headed downtown.

This time I did not dress down. If Clay didn’t find my body unattractive, who was I to argue with him? I pulled on a snug fitting T shirt, long sleeved and white with a scoop neck, and a black miniskirt I had bought ages ago but never dared wear. I even persuaded myself into sheer black thigh highs, even though I hate stockings, and cute black pumps. I did not intend to flaunt my connection with Clay, but looking at myself in the mirror, I decided that if he chose to let everybody know, I would not be an embarrassment to him.

The day was sunny and pleasantly cool, and I parked not in the big municipal garage that services the Saavis Center, but down the block at the old Union Station, restored and transformed into a pricey hotel and mall. I hadn’t been there in a good while, and was disappointed to find many of my favorite stores gone, replaced by tourist traps. Maybe it was a sign: another thing I liked about this city gone, so maybe it really was time I was gone too.

The disappointment was countered by surprise at the size and variety of the crowd there: mostly female, old and young, every shade imaginable, and many sporting some item on their person with Clay’s name or likeness! A throng surrounded one kiosk, where a man with a computer busily printed a photo scanned from Clay’s new single onto T-shirts and coffee mugs and tote bags and buttons. I was tempted to remind him of copyright law, but the eager squeals of his customers made it impossible to rain on them. Women greeted each other in the wide promenades with shrieks and hugs. It had the air of a huge family reunion, although from Trini’s past comments and snatches of overheard conversation I knew many had never before met face to face. It was oddly moving to watch this burgeoning new kind of community, this wondrous thing Clay had birthed without even knowing it, simply by being who he was.

I contemplated grabbing a tasty if overpriced burger at the Hard Rock, but when I peeked inside the place was packed with women in Clay garb, dancing on the tables to his CD and laughing and yelling. Considering the fact that my dinner with Clay had indeed been duly noted online, I thought better of entering. Instead I walked up to the box office to check in and told them I’d return closer to show time. As I paused on the sidewalk in front of Union Station to consult with my stomach, a car pulled up and a familiar face appeared—Trini, her plump little form now even rounder with pregnancy.

She didn’t see me right away…and I still feel a bit ashamed to admit this, even now, years later, even after telling her, and hearing her laugh about it; but I almost ran. I almost turned and went the other way as fast as I could before she spotted me. I couldn’t tell anyone about Clay, when I myself was still processing the events of the previous day and night. I couldn’t explain myself, and I didn’t want to lie. But she was my friend, and when she spied me and yelled happily and waddled over, I met her halfway with a big hug. When her friends who had dropped her off parked and returned, she told them she would meet them inside the arena at their seats, and we walked back inside the mall. “So you’re here to see Clay too?” she grinned, brandishing her ticket.. “Boy, that was one Clayversion that took! Meeting him didn’t hurt I’m sure, you lucky thing. I’m still jealous.”

I agreed, trying not to think about the primal level on which we had met the night before. “I’m meeting…someone at the concert.”

“Oh? Anybody I know?”

‘No, Gossip Queen, nobody you know.”

Laughter was less apparent later, though, as over Cajun sandwiches in the food court upstairs Trini confessed how her devoted boyfriend had become an indifferent but possessive husband. ‘I’m surprised he even let me come to this show. I had to sell my computer, so I haven’t been able to keep up with Clay online. I stay in touch by phone and every now and then at the library.” I sympathized, aching for her, but as usual within seconds she was on to another topic. “What about you, Ari? You’re still at the zoo? When you gonna quit that bunch?”

“Trini, that’s a big risk to take.”

“Risk nothing! They’re jerks. You’re too good for them, girl. Jump off that train wreck!”

I swallowed a chuckle. “He says the same thing.”

“Oh, HE does?” Her ankles were swelling, the reason her friends had dropped her at the door, and she put her feet up in a chair .She waited expectantly, then threw up her hands. “Never mind, I forget how you are. It’s not my biz anyhow.”

“No, Trini. That’s not it. I never had anybody in my life I could trust, so I guess I never learned how to. It’s hard, but I’m trying to get better about it. I promise you, as soon as I feel comfortable telling anybody about this—as soon as I work out in my own head what’s happening—you will be one of the first to know. Right now, all I’m sure of is…I love him. And he says he loves me, and I believe him. Where it goes from here I don’t know, not yet.”

“That’s a start, but only a start.” Trini looked excited and touchingly concerned for me at the same time. “I thought me and Paco were so perfect together too, but now he acts like he’s the boss of me but nothing else. You better have more stuff in common besides, y’know, the stuff.”

If she’d only known I’d never had ‘the stuff’ before last night. “We do. We’re both going through a lot of changes in our lives, and he understands what I’m feeling, the good and the bad, on a level I never thought another person could. One thing’s for sure, I don’t think I’d ever get bored with him!”

She laughed and we moved on to talk of other things till show time neared. Trini’s ankles weren’t much better, and I worried aloud about her walking the two blocks to the arena. A pack of women in concert gear walked by and overheard me, and before I knew it one had hurried down to customer service and wheedled them out of a wheelchair. Amazed, I was swept along as they pushed Trini up the block in the cool evening breeze, and even returned the wheelchair. “What is it with you people?” I said in honest wonder as Trini waved and went to meet her friends.

One woman shrugged and grinned. “Clay Nation,” she said simply. “We take care of our own. Claying it forward.”

I was still absorbing this extraordinary entity that seemed to have assimilated much of what was best about Clay, while a security guard escorted me backstage. Clay was MIA, and I actually met Kelly first; she was cheerful and excitable, the kind who seems always open to making a new friend. “I bet I know where he is,” she said knowingly. “Near the food. C’mon.”

It made perfect sense to me, but Clay was not to be found in the hospitality room either. Kelly made herself a sandwich and I sat down with a cookie and a bottle of water to join her. We chatted lightly for a while as crew and musicians came and went, until I caught a flicker of green out the corner of my eye. My conscious mind may not have been able to identify it, but I swear to you, my breath caught in my chest and my crotch tightened.

Clay was moving back toward the door when Kelly spotted him and hollered. He wore a long-sleeved green T-shirt over a light striped dress shirt, and cargo-type jeans hugging his hips, with a funky blue patchwork jacket tossed over. I watched him approach the table, his stance tense and uncertain. That was understandable, because I felt the same: not uncertain of him, but unsure how much of my feelings to let show in front of others, or how much he would.

The next moment, a smile swiftly pasted itself across his face. “Well look here, a couple of my favorite gurrls!” he said brightly, and after a perfunctory hug each he was gone again.

Kelly left to prepare to go on, and I wandered around a few minutes until I encountered Jerome and asked if I would be welcome in or near Clay’s dressing room. He escorted me there, but had me wait in the hallway while he went in. If he thinks I’d be scandalized seeing Clay in his skivvies…or maybe he thinks Clay would be the scandalized one… The door opened at last, disgorging a scowling Jerome. Clay stood in the doorway, making no pretense of inviting me in. “I had to give you credit for one thing,” I said quietly. “You can keep things closer to your chest than I ever even thought about. I hate to admit I was slightly disappointed. I didn’t expect you to ravish me in front of everybody and their cat, but a little eye contact would have been nice.”

He winced. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t want everybody knowin’ our business. And besides that, I need to concentrate, before I go out there, and seein’ you…distracted me. A lot. Not in a bad way, but…in a way I can’t afford to be right now. Please try to understand, and forgive me.”

I nodded. “I can’t say I don’t understand. And really, there’s nothing much to forgive. I want to be discreet as much as you do.”

He smiled faintly. “Good,” he murmured. “I want to talk later, if you can.”

It was difficult in the extreme to smile and turn and walk away like a woman discreetly having an affair, when all I wanted to do was jump on him; but I did walk away. Hopefully, there would be time for jumping later.

Distracting my own thoughts became my project for the evening, so I found my way onto the arena floor. The seat Clay had set aside for me was front row, stage right. I spoke pleasantly with those around me, and they to me, but they left me to myself for the most part. This was not as much out of the goodness of their hearts, or lack of curiosity, as from their universal giddiness at the prospect of being within a few feet of Clay. Little else beyond that seemed to register with them. I thought of him alone backstage, striving to focus, knowing thousands of people expected great things of him, and I hoped for the best. I’d only seen him sing on TV after all, so I had no idea how his screen presence might translate into this cavernous hall, or even if it could.

My concern was not allayed by Kelly’s set. She had and has a wonderful voice, and when singing she was a delight; but between songs, her interaction with the audience was limited to giggles, thank-you’s, and introductions to the next song. (That has changed mightily since then, thankfully—she puts on quite a show now.) The crowd came to its feet only once, during her final song, and that, I feared, might have been for many precisely because it was the last song, and thus they were that much closer to Clay’s appearance.

Rather than ‘distract’ him further by returning backstage, I spent intermission with Trini and her troop of friends. Again I was struck by the care of this assemblage for each other; I’d never been to a concert where people readily scooted to the far edges of their seats so a pregnant stranger could put her feet up! Some of Trini’s friends recognized me, but thankfully they only hurled a few breathless what-is-he-like questions, which I could field honestly and with replies that made them grin. When I confessed this was my ‘first time’ (with a mental snigger) the consensus was hold onto your seat’. Several of them had seen him, on the Idol tour, or at radio station Christmas concerts; three had even seen him already on this tour, and planned to follow him to Chicago to see him again the following night! All assured me I was in for a treat. I made my way back to my seat wondering what inspired such devotion to him in total strangers, and what sort of thrill ride I had hitched my heart to.

I got my answer when the house lights went out and the darkened arena was nearly lifted off its foundations by screams of excitement. I had heard of such adulation, attached to names like the Beatles or Elvis or Sinatra, but never imagined experiencing it. As Clay strode through the crowd singing and took the stage, I sat, then stood in wonder at what I saw and heard and felt. The outpouring of energy was almost palpable, as though I could reach out and grab a double handful of it. He could feel it too, I could tell, and he seemed to rise on the crest of its wave, taking it in and pouring it back out to the crowd with every note and word and look in a synergistic loop that fed on itself and spiraled higher and higher. Just when it felt as though it would burst free from all hope of control and become hysteria, he dialed it down and calmed the waves, with a silly word to a woman on a cell phone held up beside the stage by another woman, or a pause to gaze around him and laugh in amazement.

I don’t mean to sound as though I were untouched by this marvel. Granted, I tried to be objective. I really did. How could I though, when as dorky as he acted one minute, the next minute I saw the man who had taken such pleasure in being seen kissing me, by a man I had spurned; the man who had made love to me with such authority? His expression of wakening joy at the sway he held over this crowd was so like the one I had seen on his face in my bed as he realized his command of my body. And that, he still commanded. I watched him crouch at the edge of the stage’s catwalk to clasp fans’ hands, then stand with easy grace, and though the baggy jeans hid his legs I could feel in memory the power of his thighs against my skin as he struck a primal beat. My mouth dried, and my panties wet. I really shouldn’t have worn a miniskirt.

Once, at the start of his set, Clay had glanced in my general direction, but since then he had studiously avoided looking this way. At the moment, I thought that was a good thing. I felt he could see written all over my face how badly I wished he were inside me. Several stools were brought out to center stage, and as the three backup singers and a couple of musicians sat down, the audience began to follow suit. I, however, remained standing briefly, thinking this might be a good moment to slip out. Seeing what his performances entailed, I realized why he needed all his faculties about him, why he wanted no distractions.

Clay was halfway to the last vacant stool when his head swiveled and his eyes met mine, abruptly blazing, and I sat down as decisively as if he had come down off that stage and bodily put me in my seat. For the next few minutes, I was happy I’d stayed; the close harmonies of the singing and acoustic accompaniment lifted my conflicted heart. Then Clay began another song, the words vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place the tune. Many around me clearly did know it though, and their squeals turned to shrieks when he slipped his jacket off with an evil half-smile. Clearly they were expecting something of great interest, and I learned what when the band kicked in with a hard-driving beat. He leaped from the stool and began a feral dance number with one backup singer, a buxom young black woman with a soaring voice and an impertinent grin.

He may have been dancing with her, but I could feel his focus on me throughout. His stalking walk was a model of the way he had come at me in the Butterfly House, before the first time we kissed, catlike and intent. I gripped the sides of the seat like a flotation cushion on the Titanic. Words to translate the message his body was sending to mine never came, but the message was loud and clear. Clay Aiken, I concluded, was the biggest damn tease ever created. The message communicated itself in lesser form to the rest of the audience; by the end of When Doves Cry, half the women sprawled in the seats around me looked like they needed a cigarette. Worse yet, a number of them insisted as they fanned themselves that the performance ‘wasn’t as hot’ as some earlier ones! If not, I shuddered to think how much more he could cut loose. Still, not one other soul in this arena had the past with him that I did, or at least I thought not. When the house lights came up though, I was still shaky-legged, and just a little irritated, partly at him for his taunting, partly at myself for letting him get to me.

I managed to sling my pass around my neck and get backstage, where I spotted him sitting on an equipment crate chatting casually with some people while the furor of load-out swirled around him. Two could play his game. I walked up behind him, leaned in, and breathed in his ear, “Now I’m all hot and bothered, just like the rest of your harem, damn you. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Without looking back I strode away. Where I was going I didn’t exactly know—to the hospitality room maybe, or back to my seat in the rapidly emptying arena: someplace where I could take a bit to collect myself, and where it would take Clay a few minutes to find me. He said he wanted to talk, but after his public display of barely leashed sensuality, talking was not first on my list of things to do with him! I couldn’t help but laugh at myself, and think of an old college friend to whom I had confided the secret of my virginity, and who had advised me, “Ari, knowing you, God help the guy who pops your cherry…you’re gonna be insatiable.”

Big sneakers pounded the concrete behind me, but I kept walking, and working to tame the burning in my belly, till a large hand took hold of my shoulder. Abruptly halted, my forward momentum swung me around to face him; but whatever cranky words were rising to my lips died at the sight of his face, sweat-damp and scowling. Without a word, he stalked off down a hallway towing me along. Finally he shoved open the door of his dressing room, pulled me in and pushed the door closed behind me—then pushed me up against it, his mouth capturing mine in a bruising succession of kisses.

I squeaked and tried to scoot to one side and away, to catch my breath and demand an explanation, but the only one doing any demanding was clearly Clay. He pursued me, crushing my body between his and the wall, mumbling hoarsely between kisses. “Mmm…I… oh Lord Ari, what’re you doin’ to me…I could barely think today, except about you…how soft you are, how good you smell…those noises you made, I made you make, and wantin’…wantin’ to make you make those noises again…” He ground against me and got his wish, when the ache between my legs met the hardness in his pants and startled a groan from me, though muffled to a mew by his importunate mouth. “Yeah…uhh…oh yeah…I’d just gotten hold of myself, and you walked in, lookin’ like this—thank heavens these pants don’t show much—“ His hands roamed over my chest and elicited another gasp, then dropped to my hips and ran up my skirt. “I couldn’t even look at you on stage for fear everybody would see what I was thinkin’…” His fingers curled around my hips to find my ass, his mouth still hard on mine, drinking in the whimpers his touch drew from me. “And then you thought you’d just get up and leave? I saw you, yeah, you know I did…and then you tried it again now. Thought you’d walk out of here? Uh uh, woman, you’re not goin’ anywhere till—till—ohh—“

His assault left me weak all over again, but this time with relief; he wasn’t angry—just as lust-crazed as I was! I wrapped my arms around his neck and returned his mouth’s attentions with mine, kissing him like a starving woman at a feast. As I look back, I suppose I was starving: hungry for just one person who would rather be with me than anywhere else in the world.

I barely noticed the rip of cloth, and cared even less. He moved his body away from mine only long enough to tug at his pants and boxers, then shoved my skirt up over my hips, my panties vanished in the process. With one grunt he lifted me and pressed me against the wall, and as he thrust into me I clung to him, thankful his fierce kisses dampened my brief yelp of discomfort as effectively as they did my moan of pleasure that followed it. He hammered into me, bouncing my butt off the wall, and I wound my legs around him and held on.

The only sounds coming from Clay now were rough gasped repetitions of my name on shuddery snatches of breath; then even those ceased, and his teeth caught his lower lip and only grunts and pants escaped. The wild unexpectedness sent me reeling through space, my only anchor the beat of his body against mine, until release built and burst through me. I gulped, afraid I might scream, and his mouth attacked mine again, muffling both our cries as his heat erupted in me.

The rhythmic clenching of my muscles around him redoubled the sensations of my climax and I could happily have let it ripple through me for a long time; but inexplicably Clay pulled away, staggering back a step as though forgetting his pants were down almost to his knees. His face melted from the light of release and froze in shock. Worried he had been overwhelmed by the moment, I forced my wobbly legs to move forward, and guided him to the nearest chair. He slumped into it, heedless of his half-undress, and buried his face in his hands. “I…I think you should go, Arianne, and d—don’t call me anymore. I won’t call you, I…”

I stood speechless, my legs still shaky from orgasm but ready to kick his ass, until his voice quivered and broke. His head lifted, and his wide frightened eyes were magnified by the tears that filled them. “Clay, my God, what is it? Did I do something wrong?”

He shook his head, and pressed his trembling lips tightly together before attempting to speak again. ‘I’m scared, Ari,” he whispered at last. “I don’t know this person I’m turning into. This man who wants your body, and your mind and heart and soul, so badly it literally hurts; who wants to take you, to claim you, to hold onto you and never let go; who goes totally wild at the thought of being with you…” He visibly shuddered. “I can’t control him. I don’t recognize him. I’m afraid of him.”

With no clue what to say to comfort him, I opened my mouth—and his words from the night before rose to my mind, and it all fit. Sometimes when I’m writing, a character does something even I don’t understand; but I trust them, and I keep writing, and sooner or later the reason emerges. It’s not always so neat in real life, but this one certainly was. “Well, of course you don’t!” I exclaimed. “How could you? You told me last night the only aggressive men you’d ever been exposed to were men like your birth father, mean and violent, and that you swore you’d never be like him. You’re not. You never could be.”

Clay’s laugh was short and humorless. He raised himself from the chair enough to hitch up his pants, then bent to one side to pick up a shredded bit of cloth and snapped elastic. ‘You don’t call this violent?”

“So that’s where my panties went. I lost track of them.” I tugged my skirt back down over my bare bottom and giggled. “Heck no. I don’t call that violent. I call that passionate.”

“I probably hurt you,” he mumbled, his eyes averted again. “I’d rather never see you again than be afraid of hurting you.”

“So I got a bruise on my hiney. It’s padded well enough to take it. I have no doubt you would never, ever do anything to deliberately hurt me.”

“Deliberately, no, but people die accidentally every day.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Damn, but he was stubborn. “Stop it, Clay. The man who just balled my brains half out my ear wasn’t some stranger. Maybe it seemed that way to you. Maybe that’s because you’ve feared and fought that part of yourself for years, because you associated it with such bad things. But if you reject that, you reject more than what made you enjoy seeing Jared squirm when you kissed me. You reject what made you fight Idol to keep your name your own, and what makes you able to hold thousands of people in the palm of your hand without arrogance, but with power. Don’t do that, Clay. Please don’t.”

He was quiet for a long moment, still not looking at me. “It’s wrong to want to own someone,” he said finally.

“Yeah, it is.” I nodded, thinking of Trini, as I squatted at Clay’s feet and patted his knees to make him look at me. “But that isn’t what you’re doing. I can tell the difference.” At least his eyes flicked my way, shy and uncertain of where I was headed. “You’re the one who keeps telling me how you love my strength and my independence. Those aren’t the words of a man who wants to ‘own’ a woman, to crush her will with his. Those are the words of a man in love. Did you hear yourself, just a few minutes ago, saying my name over and over? Do you feel that way about any other woman?”

That got his attention for real. “No,” he snapped.

“Have you ever? Not that it’s my business—“

“No.” He was still wondering what I meant; I could see it in the narrowing of his tear-wet eyes. “This is…it’s something different, Ari. I never imagined loving someone could take over my life this way.”

“Neither did I,” I smiled, and that, whatever else I could not tell him, was the gospel truth. I shifted from squatting to kneeling before his chair. “And you probably can’t imagine, either, how it feels for me to know that the only woman in the world who has affected you this way, the only woman on Earth who can turn this man, this smart and self-controlled and strong and caring man, into a wild man raging with desire…is me.” I was startled to find my own voice halting now. I wrapped my arms around his knees and laid my head on his lap. “I didn’t realize myself, till right now, right this minute, just how badly I wanted to be wanted this badly, Clay…”

“And you never were.” His voice hardened, but his hands caressed my hair and rested gently on my head like a blessing. “Well, you are now, so get used to it. I don’t want to think about tomorrow without you in it. I don’t want any man ever again to see you the way I just saw you. That look you get, when you tell your stories; I’ve seen it two other times since then, when we…made love. I want to be the only man who can do that, the only man who can please you, if you’ll let me.”

“Yes,” I sighed.

“But only if you really can trust me. I don’t ever want to do anything I’ll have to beg your forgiveness for.”

“Oh, we’ll both do that, I’m sure. After all, the last time I checked, we were both human beings.” He snickered, and when I looked up the anxiety was fading from his sweet face. “At the moment,” I added as I felt something trickle slowly down my inner thigh, “the only wrong between us is the fact that we were both so horny we neglected to use protection. Fortunately, it’s the wrong time of month; but if you’ll excuse me, I need to tidy up.”

“We’ll only have to worry about that until we get married,” he jibed as I slipped into the dressing area’s bathroom. Quickly I cleaned up, straightened my clothes and checked myself in the mirror. A post-sex glow looked quite good on me, actually. I glanced at my watch. Barely ten minutes had passed since Clay hauled me into the room: ten minutes from confusion and desire to…engaged? Says who?

My hackles raised all over again, I stalked out, ready to leave foot prints on his tonsils for that smug assumptive crack. Clay still sat in the chair with his long legs sprawled across the concrete floor, and looked up at me. “Were you really going to leave?” he asked.

The hint of sadness that hovered in his eyes undid all my temper. “No,” I said honestly. “I just needed to go and, get myself together, I guess. You said you wanted to talk, but after the show you just put on, I wasn’t sure I could focus on talking just then. And I was…kinda hoping you might come look for me.”

“I would’ve.” He grinned faintly, as though pleased he wasn’t the only one too fired up to see straight. “It was hard for me to hold it together up there, but if I’d done half of what my body wanted to do, I would’ve scared Angela to death, and undoubtedly gotten arrested too.”

“Considering what we just did, I’d have to agree,” I managed while nearly bent double with laughter. Finally I regained enough breath to start with some bits of my previous asperity, “Now, about that smart-aleck remark regarding marriage—“

“The only long-term solution to this little problem we ran into tonight. When I said I couldn’t imagine tomorrow without you I meant it, literally. In fact I’d be happy as a pig in mud if you went out and got on the bus with me right now, and went to Chicago, and then the next place and the next, till we got back to LA—I mean, why’d you think I wanted you to look at that neat old house anyhow? I want you to live there, with me, and for that to happen we’d have to get married. Unless you don’t really think you can put up with me…”Clay’s stream of jabber lost its head of steam as I did not reply. “Ari? Ari, I love you. Please say yes. Heck, say something!”

All my synapses could piece together was, “But I can’t go to Chicago. I don’t have any underwear.”

This time Clay nearly folded up laughing. “I bet they sell ladies’ underwear someplace in Chicago, baby.”

+++

I did not ride off into the sunset on Clay’s half of the tour bus that night, which is not to say a secret part of me wouldn’t have loved to. Certainly he would have been all for it. There were loose ends in St Louis that I needed to tie up though, especially where the Butterfly House was concerned. Clay’s confidence in me had infected my own doubts and cured them—I would leave, but on my own terms. So, after he showered and changed and we headed for the bus, I phoned in and left a message that I would miss Monday but be back Tuesday; something personal had come up, something large and pressing that only I was equipped to handle. It was one of the sweetest double entendres I had ever assayed, and Clay turned bright red when he heard it, while trying simultaneously not to stumble over his feet and fall to the floor howling.

Kelly, and Clay’s other traveling companions, seemed both mildly shocked and highly pleased when I climbed aboard behind him. Whatever surprise they felt, and for whatever reason, it didn’t keep them from chattering half the night away as the bus sped northward, and asking me all those questions I had gotten used to hearing about my work. Being a published writer just fascinates people, even people successful in their own right. So I jumped into the conversation, laughing and making new friends and hoping to keep things discreet between Clay and me, just as we had agreed to. It probably would have worked too, if not for Clay constantly staring at me and grinning like a goon. His idea of discreet wasn’t quite the same as mine, apparently.

When the convocation finally broke up in the wee hours, I climbed into a vacant bunk accompanied by his whispered ‘good night’, and was met by two revelations. One was that this was the first time, even in my own mind, that I had referred to writing as my work. The other was that, after sleeping alone perforce or by choice for my entire adult life, I suddenly found that it was no substitute for being in Clay’s arms.

They do sell women’s undergarments in Chicago, by the way, a fact Clay occasionally points out to me to this day. I discovered this and many other useful tidbits of information during a brief but exuberant shopping expedition organized by Angela and Quiana, the tour backup singers. Their every giggle and boisterous side comment made me certain they knew our secret, but equally sure that they were fond enough of Clay that they were keeping their suspicions between themselves. After a quick washup on the bus I felt presentable enough to be seen at the concert. Without conflicting emotions kicking my brain around like kids playing soccer, I was able to relax and enjoy the show. He got me again with When Doves Cry though, and worse. This time, with all feelings open between us, Clay did his cheerfully naughty bump and grind with Angela, but with his gaze fixed on me like two green lasers the entire time. I felt like I needed a cigarette, and I’ve never smoked in my life!

Clay and Kelly alternated slots on the tour, so he performed first in Chicago. My shopping trip had kept me from ‘distracting’ him before, but at intermission I took myself backstage. The instant Clay saw me, he grabbed my hand and took off for the back door. “Ari, thank heavens! I’ve lost something, you gotta come help me find it.”

I sputtered all the way out to the bus, pulled up beneath the arena in an echoey berth. “Clay? What did you lose this time?” Quiana and Angela had warned me of his predilection for misplacing stuff. We halted at the bus door, the bulk of the huge vehicle blocking us from all view. “What did you lose?”

“My sanity, I think,” he panted as he caught my face in his hands and kissed me hard. “Arianne, I swear, gurrl, you’re drivin’ me crazy. I’ve been calculatin’ minutes—I have to be back on stage at the end of Kelly’s set, but between now and then we’ve got over an hour, so we can take our time, kind of, if you want to…”

I stifled a squeal, and we flung the door open and dashed for the rear of the bus like wicked kids. “What if somebody catches us?” I asked, although the thought, absent the damage it might do Clay’s career, actually made things even more exciting.

“Won’t,” he assured me as he locked the sliding panel that separated the back stateroom from the rest of the vehicle. “Everybody’s busy with Kelly now. Nobody around here but us. Dang, you look so pretty in that outfit…I keep wantin’ to take it off you…”

He did, and I did the same for him, and he laid me gently back on the big bed. Our lovemaking this time held neither the cautious care of our first time nor the manic intensity of the second. From those, I had already learned a few things about how Clay liked his sex, where and how he liked to be touched, and he had apparently done likewise with me. I knew kissing his belly made him gasp and stretch and twitch, and he knew straightening my arm with gentle compulsion and nibbling on the inside of my elbow could almost bring me to climax with little additional help.

We didn’t have to rely solely on foreplay though, since he’d even been foresighted enough to somehow procure condoms. Only till we’re married,, I thought, and then imagined myself having his children, a wonderful and scary thing to think about. My God, forty-eight hours ago I was a virgin; now I’m stealing quickies backstage. And loving it, may I add, as we lay tangled up in limp spent contentment. Could marital sex possibly be this consistent or this good?

The answer, as we learned in the months and years that followed, were no and yes, respectively. No, we didn’t get to make love every single day; yes, it was as good, and sometimes better.

After the show, the bus made a quick detour to O’Hare Airport, where Clay sadly put me on a red-eye back to St Louis. I spent the next couple of weeks typing those loose ends in neat and inescapable knots. Tuesday morning, I gave my notice at the Butterfly House. Writing was my career, I informed them, my life’s work. It deserved all my energies, and they deserved an employee who wasn’t trying to juggle loyalties. That last jab took the wind completely out of their sails, and left me looking like the noble one and them like the small-minded dummies they were. I didn’t mind leaving that as a legacy. The legacy I liked better was the sight I saw on my last walk through the House: Mack guiding a group of squealing youngsters in wheelchairs, and looking as happy as they.

While idling out my last two weeks of employment, I cleaned out my apartment, selling some stuff, giving much away, and putting a few things in storage to retrieve later. I also sat down and wrote a letter to my parents. In it, I explained exactly how I felt about the way they had raised me and treated me. I took great pains to craft the words just so, to be passionate and yet not strident. There were no judgment calls against them, just my feelings, expressed without apology. With it, I included a sizable check. I know I cost you a great deal as a child, in medical bills and the like, I wrote. I have been blessed with a gift of words, which many people seem to enjoy and appreciate, well enough to make it my livelihood. I want to share some of the fruit of my labor with you. Please take this as my contribution toward your past efforts. I hope you will accept it and use it in good health. If you choose not to, please dispose of it safely. You will not be able to return it, as I am moving soon and not sure yet what my new address will be. You are my parents and I love you, but I will not chase you around begging for your approval anymore. I have approval, and fulfillment, and love beyond my wildest dreams.

I mailed the letter, expecting nothing of it other than the lightness of heart it gave me to pull all the dark remnants of my past out of their cupboard into the sun and watch them fade. In one of our regular daily conversations I told Clay about it, and he was so happy for me: yet another of those qualities of spirit I loved in him. He still had a few more weeks of touring left, so I opted to keep enough stuff in my apartment to camp there till the end of April. I amazed myself at the amount of writing I got done in a quiet, sparsely filled space, where I had nothing to worry about other than writing itself.

A few days before my lease was up, the phone rang. It was my mother, and she was crying. Four hours of conversation could not negate a lifetime of hurt and misunderstandings, but it was certainly a valid start. A few days later, when I boarded a plane to LA, the most important thing I packed with me (besides my manuscripts) was a sense of true completion, of closure, of ending and beginning. As we took off, circled St Louis, and pointed west, I watched out my window until even the great Arch by the river could no longer be seen…

+++

Now, I gazed out the window of my expensive hotel suite at that same Arch, still rising brightly like a man-made rainbow into the sky just a few streets away. Yeah, all things considered, it was all right, being back here. Any conflicts I might ever have had about my decision (and for the life of me I couldn’t recall having any!) were long gone. My promise to trust Clay I had kept, though it had taken time, and some twists and turns (and kinks) along the way; and he had never shown himself to be anything other than utterly worthy of my utter confidence. He had learned to open to me too, as evidenced by the fact that when I finally admitted I had kept the secret of my virginity, he had responded in kind—with the same admission! We still laughed at ourselves sometimes over that.

My chuckle morphed into a small sigh. The trust and love would never change, but its expression would, sadly, as things in life do. We both worshiped our daughter, but Deborah Faye’s birth likely meant an end to our wilder and more spontaneous love games. No more chasing each other through the house in pirate costumes for lewd purposes …or like the time he was going through orders for concert merchandise and I kept teasing him, what he did to keep me ‘occupied’ till he finished work…I suppressed a lovely shiver of lascivious memory. We’ll just have to plan ahead. Hope I can lose these last few baby pounds and get back into my corset…and Dede may get herself a brother or sister as an end result.

Missing my family did not preclude my enjoying myself on my first solo business trip in a while, though. I walked down to the river to play tourist and reacquaint myself with the view, and took a cab to a tiny shop tucked away in a corner of the city, where I indulged my darkest whims…for chocolate. (I’d never been there with Clay. It seemed rather cruel, since he couldn’t eat a thing they sold.) The next day I called the Butterfly House. The receptionist was a stranger, and she didn’t recognize any of the names I mentioned. I wasn’t surprised, since I hadn’t exactly made an effort to stay in touch.

I’d attempted to call Trini from LA while planning my wedding, but the number she’d given me was disconnected. I’d fretted till Clay made a simple yet brilliant suggestion: I visited the online group of his fans she belonged to. I encountered a couple of the friends she’d joined in St Louis, and, once they were sure of my identity, I was thrilled to be told they had helped her to leave with her baby, and then divorce her abusive husband. I’d gotten her to California to be in the wedding, in the beautiful old house Clay and I had bought to be our home. To her credit, she had only threatened to faint twice the whole time. Her transformation from awe-struck fan of Clay to clownish friend to him was amazingly fast, and he adored her. She’d since remarried and moved overseas with her military husband, and we emailed regularly.

So that part of my past was polished off. My parents lived too far away to visit, and I’d called them before leaving home anyway. With nothing more pressing after finishing my last interviews, I went shopping. Laurie Solet came through for me; I found the perfect dress, mocha silk charmeuse (okay, so my mind was still on chocolate). It had a shirred fitted bodice with corset-style ties, although I refuse to concede that as the first attraction; gathered sleeves, a full tea-length skirt and sweetheart neckline. It fit as though custom made, and after childbirth, something that fits is a gift straight from God. As I waited to pay a necklace caught my eye: a carved shell feather, a faceted crystal drop and a silver loop, all hanging from a soft tan leather thong. It gave the solid-colored dress a whole palette of earth shades, and filled the neckline nicely. I bought both, with a mental smile of thanks for not being straitjacketed by the price tag.

Back at the hotel, I called Clay to describe my purchases. “Wow. Can you take a picture with your phone and send it to me? I want to see.” I approached the dress lying on the bed while agreeing. “No, on you, silly!”

I giggled and quickly changed, chatting the while about my other adventures. Clay responded with periodic noises. “Am I putting you to sleep?” I asked. “Guys as a general rule don’t find girl talk very entertaining.”

“Your talk is always entertaining. And if you’re not with me, I can close my eyes and pretend you are, when I listen to you.”

I bit my lip. “I wish I were with you too. Okay, here goes.” I stood in front of the mirror and snapped the picture. Not bad. I sent it.

A few moments later, Clay said slowly, “Uhh…do you think I’d get an electrical shock if I lick the screen?”

I cackled. “Yes, probably, you nut. So, you like?”

“I like. It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. Now go downstairs.”

“Say what?”

“Get your purse and go downstairs. There’s a limo waiting for you. Come—I mean go on.”

“Aye aye sir!” I laughed in total surprise while I grabbed my bag and a wrap, fluffed my hair and hurried down to the hotel lobby. If I had kept my word to trust Clay, he had more than kept his to never play a prank on me. He still sprang his silly and sometimes juvenile practical jokes on friends and co-workers, but my life with him had been a succession of sweet unexpecteds, not one mocking or humiliating or hurtful in the least. My faith in him, I had quickly learned, brought him incredible joy, so much so that for a while he had really lived in fear of ever failing me, betraying my trust. Frankly, I thought him constitutionally incapable of ever doing such, and once I knew his heart I regularly made damn sure he knew it.

A smiling chauffeur in natty uniform met me at the front desk and escorted me to the stretch waiting outside. The back of the limo was empty except for a paisley silk scarf, meltingly soft to the touch. “Put that over your eyes,” Clay directed me when I praised it. Ohhh, what game was my inventive lover playing this time? I put the phone on speaker and obediently tied it over my face, giggling heartily to myself the entire time. “What are you laughin’ at?” he asked, almost chuckling himself by now.

“Myself,” I explained with a grin as I picked up the phone. The limo moved into the street. “Just knowing you are the only man on the planet I’d do this for. I didn’t notice how tinted the windows are. Hope nobody calls the cops to pull us over and see if I’m being abducted.”

Clay slyly assured me we were safe from well-intentioned intervention. “So, you think you’re funny for goin’ along, or what?” his disembodied voice queried into the sumptuous dark that now engulfed my senses.

“In a way; but in a way, no. I’m not really laughing at anything. Being yours is such fun, it’s hard sometimes not to laugh for the sheer pleasure of it.”

The phone was silent for a minute. “I love you,” he said simply. “I still want to be the only one who can please you.”

“And that you are. I love you too.” The stillness lingered. “It’s very quiet where you are.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he returned archly.

“So, did you sell our daughter to the gypsies, or what?” I asked and enjoyed listening to him howl.

“Our daughter is havin’ a grand time,” he replied, and would say no more. Well, she was old enough to go visiting. “Any idea where you are?”

“Oh, none at all! We’re leaving downtown, I think, but that’s all I can tell. I rarely came downtown when I lived here, so I don’t know the streets with my eyes closed, pardon the pun.” The traffic had thinned; there was less stop and go, and once we took briefly to the freeway. A short time later, the powerful engine’s hum changed pitch as we moved uphill, then stopped. “Clay? You still there?”

“Mm-hm. The door’ll open in a minute, and somebody’ll be there to help you get out. Don’t take the blindfold off yet, please. Okay?”

I assented and waited. Low voices murmured up front, and then as promised I heard the back door nearest to me open. I still held the phone in one hand, and reached out with the other, met by a large hand that folded around mine.

“You little shit,” I said suddenly.

There was a sputter, and then a gale of laughter in stereo, both from the phone and from the body attached to the hand. “How’d you know?” Clay demanded. “I didn’t even put on any cologne. And that’s my right hand, so you couldn’t’ve felt my wedding ring.”

‘I just knew, as soon as you touched me.” I fumbled with the phone. He took it, thumbed it off and dropped it in my purse, then grasped my other hand halfway to the scarf. “Wait a sec, please, Ari? There is another surprise, honest.”

“As if you’re not enough surprise?” I squealed as he kissed me. Temporarily deprived of sight, the feel of his warm mouth and lightly stubbled jaw was intoxicating. I ran my hands up into his hair, luxuriating in its soft length. “You’re supposed to be in LA meeting.”

“The meetings ended yesterday. I kinda fibbed.” I could hear his attempt to look shamefaced. From the sound of it, the look was failing miserably.

“For the past month and a half, you kinda fibbed!” I could have pretended to be mad, I supposed; but for heaven’s sake, why bother? “Where’s Dede?”

He snickered. “Last I saw of her, the diva was practicing wrappin’ her maternal grandparents around her lil’ finger.”

“Was she, now?” I wasn’t all that surprised that she was with my parents. I was, however, slightly surprised Clay had taken her there. He, so forbearing and forgiving, had actually held a grudge against them for quite a while, for their thoughtlessness toward me. Their relationship had progressed in baby steps, no pun intended, since then; maybe this was a bigger one. He sounded not at all unhappy about leaving Dede there. “Then I have you to myself for a while?”

“All night. I left plenty of diapers and bottles of milk. When I left, she and your dad were gettin’ a big kick out of her rubber octopus to chew on that Nick and Kelly gave her, that farts when she squeezes it.” His arms tightened possessively around me. “I love my best friend, the mother of my baby gurrl, but I really miss that wanton wench I married.”

“Ooh,” I tittered with interest, trying to explore his body with my hands while he playfully tried to keep me from it. I did discover a deliciously soft jacket, and jeans, well-fitted ones. I investigated the button fly, and what lurked within. “Ah, and this must be that other surprise you alluded to?”

“Hey, watch it, we’re in public, sort of!” he yelped, laughing and pinning my hands behind me. We were outside—I could feel a faint cool breeze, and smell mulch—but any sound of cars was very far away.

“How can you be in public ‘sort of’?” I protested while attempting, not very vigorously, to escape his grasp.

“Well—I was tryin’ to think of times you talked about gettin’ wild, and this came to mind.”

His hands slid up my face, softer than the silk but sending shivers through me with their tender strength. He pulled the scarf away, and I gasped. The glass walls of the Butterfly House rose before me, lambent in the reflected fire of sunset. If it was not the last place on earth I would have expected to be taken, it certainly would have made my short list. I stood for a moment frozen in surprise and lost in memory, and then looked around. Clay stuck a hand in his jeans pocket and grinned, the light breeze tossing his dark chestnut bangs over his forehead. With the jeans he wore a white dress shirt, untucked and open at the neck, and over all a black jacket of fine-wale corduroy. Oh, and my favorite boots. Have I, in my meanderings, mentioned how hot my handsome husband looks in boots? “Ah…I see what you meant about being in public,” I said, and controlled my drooling long enough to check my watch. “It’s only now closing time, at least if they haven’t changed their hours.”

“Closing time for them, opening time for us. They still rent the place out for special occasions, you know.” As his words sank in I caught my breath anew and moved into his arms. After another series of long deep kisses, he stroked the silk of the scarf along my throat. It was cream-colored, with a rich pattern of practically every color in the rainbow. “I got this one because I figured no matter what color dress you got it would go with it. You could wear it around your neck, I thought.” He picked up my necklace and admired it. “But this is too cool to cover up.”

“Here, wrap it around my arm. I’ve worn bandanas as bracelets that way.” Clay wound it around my right wrist several times and tucked the knotted ends underneath to create a funky look. Then he sent the chauffeur on his way and escorted me through the front plaza, between the huge concrete critters, and inside.

Patrons had been cleared out, obviously, but the exhibit hall was packed with employees, guides and scientists and all, staring and squealing and trying very hard not to look as though they were staring and squealing. We greeted them pleasantly, though it felt quite odd to me to walk through this familiar place now peopled by strange faces. Another shock awaited me at the main desk, though: Mack, cheerful in a suit and tie! I let out a little cry of delight and grabbed his hands. “But—I called and they said you weren’t here anymore!”

He waggled his eyebrows at the little receptionist. “Tracey does some acting on the side.” She tittered and blushed nicely. “Clay really wanted all this to be a surprise, and he thought if you knew anybody was here you might decide to come visiting prematurely. And really, I’m not here, not as a docent anyway. I went on and got my master’s, in special education.” That was the biggest shocker yet, and one of the sweetest. “Those special kids—they get under your skin, and won’t let go. They’re great. So now, I’m the associate director for inclusion for the whole Missouri Botanical Gardens system. In fact, Clay and I have been talking about his foundation helping us out with some ideas I have.”

While I sputtered and hugged him, Tracey passed Clay a huge canvas tote bag secreted behind her desk. Mack handed him a slip of paper. “This isn’t usually the way we handle rentals, but given both your positions, you clearly want your privacy; and with Ari being a former employee, I think we’re safe. I took care of that other thing we talked about too. So have a wonderful evening!”

The paper contained the alarm code and the phone number to call security and let them know when we left. As Mack shooed the staff out, Clay and I walked back toward the conservatory entrance. ‘He’s right,” I said. “They don’t just turn people loose in here.”

“Oh, he warned me they’d bill us for anything broken,” Clay chuckled. “Now…where’s that little hill you told me about once?”

‘I don’t even know that it’s here anymore!” I said; but I found the pathways had not been changed, and located the place we had often called the Grassy Knoll with no trouble. “If you were thinking we could really do much more than picnic, I hate to disappoint you,” I said as I watched him pull a sheet out of the bag and spread it for seating. “The place is full of security cameras, and I maintain my position that our love life is nobody’s business.”

“You’ve always maintained that position,” Clay pulled off his jacket and plopped down on the sheet. Rolling up his sleeves, he began to dig through the bag. “Remember the DJ that asked you if I was gay?”

“The one I laughed so hard at I had to leave the studio to go to the bathroom?” I snorted and dropped beside him, spreading my skirt and waving off some visiting butterflies.

“I thought I’d die listening to it, when you came back and he wouldn’t get off that, and all you said was no wonder he kept asking, since he probably had no experience to tell him what a satisfied woman looked like.”

I chuckled at the memory. “Yep. That’s all he got and all anybody is ever gonna get. Which brings me back to the moment. I don’t want to see surveillance video of my butt on Ebay.”

Clay pointed upward, toward one camera. Its red light was dark. “Another perk of being a so-called celebrity,” he said with a definite smirk. “Now let’s eat. The deli you used to get lunch at is still down the street, and Mack even remembered some of the stuff you liked, so he gets the credit for the menu.”

From the bag Clay pulled out chicken salad with grapes and pecans (which he did not partake of, sticking with the tuna); marinated veggies, and cold pasta with pesto, and tiny single servings of a half dozen French cheeses; a big round loaf of Turkish bread sprinkled with seeds, and plump carrot muffins. I was speechless. “This is the stuff I liked, but I couldn’t afford most of it at the time.” He just grinned and we dug in, talking and laughing, marveling at the moths and butterflies that passed, simply enjoying each other’s company. I sighed with contentment as the last morsels vanished. “How was I blessed to find a man so thoughtful?” I asked the heavens beyond the glass roof.

The man in question lifted my hand and kissed it, his eyes bright. “Because the man was blessed with you.” I caressed his face, and he rubbed his cheek against my silken bracelet. “I have to confess though, I did consider being a bit nasty along with the thoughtful.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“Yeah…I thought about tossin’ a handful of scarves in the back of the limo and askin’ you to tie yourself up for me, just to see if you would.”

“I would! Remember Valentine?”

His eyes took on a wicked glitter. “Oh yeah. I remember Valentine. My pretty slave girl with the tight red corset and the smart mouth. It took some disciplining to make her mind.”

“Yes it did…So if I’d tied myself up in the limo, what would you have done then?”

“Then, I’d carry you in here and have myself a nice long hors d’oeurve hour before I fed you dinner. Assuming I could restrain myself from takin’ you right there in the back seat.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Remember when you picked me up in Atlanta, from my European book tour?”

“When the limo driver opened the privacy panel, and saw you straddlin’ me, and just smiled and closed it back up?”

“And drove around and around the city on the 475 loop, till we finished!” I laughed while simultaneously suppressing a shiver of arousal. “So why didn’t you? Ask me to do it tonight, I mean.”

“I couldn’t figure how to make absolutely sure nobody saw, and I promised you I’d never embarrass you.”

Touched, I giggled and then sighed a little. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking, we’ll have to let that go. Can’t run to check on a crying baby very well in a corset and stilettos. But who needs props?”

“Nobody, when you have imagination, and love.” He nibbled on the scarf. “Although this is very temptin’, and worn in a pretty provocative place. You want me to serve you dessert?”

“Serve me dessert, or serve me as dessert?”

“Yes,” he smiled, but made no immediate move. As ever, he left the choice to me.

Without a word, I turned where I sat and put my hands behind me. He undid the scarf partway, wound the loose ends around my other wrist, and reknotted them firmly. I felt the familiar fleeting tremor of capture, that smoothed into calm surrender and a tingle of beginning arousal. Clay’s warm mouth found the juncture of my neck and shoulder, while his fingertips brushed along the hypersensitive insides of my elbows. I squirmed almost reflexively against the bonds; he loves it when I struggle, even though we both know I have no desire to escape him. I think it punctuates his sense of control, the power he feels free to relish because I freely, if temporarily, give it to him. “You know, Clay…mmm…if you keep this up I’m—ahh—not going to be capable of thinking about food. And I really did want some dessert.”

“True,” he conceded, with one more kiss. “Sorry.”

Dessert was crisp Fuji apple slices with a sumptuous spiced whipped cream for dipping. Naturally, Clay took full advantage of his freedom and my restraint to tease and play, dabbing the cream on my nose or lip or chin before feeding me a bite of fruit, then cleaning up his mess with wet kisses. “No fair!” I mock-complained, and retaliated by swiping a dollop off the next offering with my tongue and slapping it right down on the back of his hand. He yelped and laughed, though he tried to look stern. I lowered my head, holding his eyes, and thoroughly bathed his skin with my mouth. His breath roughened, and his long fingers tangled in my hair, drawing me up to meet a hard long kiss. As he leaned in, I leaned back, bracing myself with my bound hands.

Reaching behind me, he undid the back of my dress and drew it off my shoulders and down to my waist, as far as it would go without freeing my captive wrists. The construction of the bodice had the bra built in, so he greeted my breasts immediately, still rounded and full from childbirth. His mouth traveled down my throat skirting the necklace, before he paused to dab a bit of cream on my erect and interested nipples from a cool apple slice. Half the fruit went in my mouth and half in his. He grasped my upper arms and pushed me gently back to lie on the ground, ready to lick his dessert off me; but an interloper beat him to his target.

With a swirl of color, a huge brilliant butterfly lit on my chest. Fascinated, I watched it turn unerringly toward the sweet sugary stuff it sensed on my skin; but when it took a step toward its destination I gasped aloud. Startled, Clay raised a hand to swat it. “Is it hurting you?” he asked, concerned.

“No—it’s just—it’s walking on my nipple, and those little spikes on its legs—they tickle, and it’s—ohhh—it’s like that thing you do to me with your eyelashes that makes me crazy…“ Now another swept down, and another, still awake since we’d left the conservatory lights on full. Their prickly feet sent tiny ripples of shock down my already excited nerve endings. I twitched, stimulated despite myself by no human hand, and helpless to shoo my tiny tormentors away.

Clay could have, but he didn’t. Satisfied I wasn’t in pain or peril, he lowered his hand, a look of wicked curiosity reclaiming his chiseled face. “They must think you’re some amazing new flower,” he murmured. “Or a whole garden, even. Well, they can have their fill, and do a little of my work for me…they don’t know I’ve saved the sweetest blossom for myself.”

He scooted my skirt up my hips, and kneaded my thighs with his big hands, sliding his thumbs inside my underwear to stroke the swollen hot eagerness inside. I cried out and jerked, putting some of the insects to flight, but more crowded on to replace them, like two extra hands to taunt me. Clay pulled my panties down then, and cupped my ass while he tasted my juices, his tongue flicking in and out of me, like the butterflies sampling their exotic nectar. If I had dreamt of a man who could tease me expertly till I begged for mercy, I had found one; Clay had learned quickly from our first love making. I rarely came unexpectedly now. He knew exactly how far to push me till I teetered on the brink of climax for eternities at a time.

He drove me to the brink now, reveling in my whimpers and breathless moans, then backed off. Amazingly, the butterflies had almost licked my nipples clean. As they dispersed, Clay finished the job, with firm smooth pressure of his mouth that kept me aroused but not quite as frantic. “I better not get a yeast infection down there,” I grumbled. “You ate sweets, and then you ate me.”

“Uh uh. You think I want to itch too? I drank water first. Didn’t you see me?”

“No, I was too busy being assaulted by your little helpers.”

“Some things a fellow can use some help with. Some things a fellow can do all by himself.” He reached for his fly.

“Wait, Clay. I want to get this dress off before I ruin it. And I need to touch you.”

He might, and often did, tantalize me until I begged him to make me come, but I never had to beg for this. When I said game over, it was over, and he never pouted. “I aim to please,” he purred, and unbound my hands.

I laid the dress, and the scarf, aside, and then his shirt, admiring his body as he slid out of his jeans. When I got pregnant, Clay decided that to keep up with a child, he’d better start exercising, and months of steady workouts fit in around recording and touring and all had toned his lean body to a thing of beauty. I brushed his bangs back from his face; the darker hair color brought out tones of blue and even gray in the eyes I had always thought uncompromisingly green. ”What?” he laughed.

“You look so different from the first time I saw you; the first time we met; the first time we made love.”

“Looks don’t count for that much.”

“I know. But you have changed, some. You’re smarter, stronger, savvier. But the essentials haven’t changed. You still uplift those around you, and inspire total strangers. Your soul hasn’t changed. You’re still the man I fell in love with, the only man I ever gave myself to.”

A small smile quirked his mouth anew. “I never dreamed a geek who hadn’t even been with a gurrl could ever have such physical joy, or find such a soulmate.”

We held each other, and then made love, slow and steady and sweet. We whispered words of wonder and bliss and commitment, until passion overwhelmed vocabulary; and then we cried each other’s names in affirmation as we climaxed.

Oh, and I pulled his hair, too. A lot. That was one of the main reasons I asked him to untie me, to be honest. It’s become one of my favorite parts of sex since he let it grow out. He swears when I do, it even grows faster.

We lay in a tangled heap of debauchery till sweat began to dry and chill us. Clay freed one arm from around me and fumbled behind him. A moment later the rumpled edge of the sheet tossed over us, and he rolled us both over until we were wrapped in it like a sexed-up burrito. Then we dissolved into helpless happy giggles in each other’s arms. “I guess we’d better get goin’,” he managed finally. “We can’t lie here all night.”

“Especially since this thing is a lot harder to lie on than I recall it being,” I agreed. We sat up and sorted out our discarded clothing. My dress would need dry cleaning, but though crumpled, it wasn’t in a bad state. I rolled the paisley scarf up and stuck it in my purse.

Clay wriggled into his jeans (always an entertaining sight), and reached for his shirt, then stopped and laughed. A big black butterfly sat calmly waving its wings on the white fabric. ‘You got word too late,” Clay told it. “Buffet’s closed. She’s all mine now.”

I snickered as we packed the bag. Clay stood and offered me his hand. “Now where?” I asked as I got to my feet. “We don’t have to be parents again till tomorrow.”

“Back to the hotel, Mrs. Aiken. The night is still young.”

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You can contact the author at theleewit@mindspring.com.

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